KB 



RECOLLECTIONS 

OF 

REV. WD? GRIFFIN, 

OK 



BY PARSONS COOKE. 



WRITTEN FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY, AND 
APPROVED BY THE COMMITTEE OP PUBLICATION. 



BOSTON: 

MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY, 
Depository No. 13 Cor:nhill. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855 , 
By the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society. 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



Geo. C. Hand, Printer, 3 Cornhill, Boston. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



When we were first moved to put on paper some 
recollections, which we had in mind, that might serve 
to make better known a person, whom the present and 
coming generations have an interest in knowing better, 
our plan was, to be confined to our personal recollections, 
intending that they should be supplemental to the very 
excellent Memoir of him, which was written by Rev. Dr. 
Sprague, from materials furnished by his family. It has 
since come to mind, that as many readers have come upon 
the stage since Dr. Griffin left it, the recollections would 
be better appreciated by them, were they connected with 
such a brief sketch of his early life, as might be brought 
within a few pages. This sketch we have given, gather- 
ing our facts for it mostly from Dr. Sprague's Memoir, 
ta which we are also indebted for extracts, which appear 
in the subsequent part of the work. 



RECOLLECTIONS OP DR. GRIFFIN. 



CHAP TEE I. 

A BRIEF SKETCH OP DR. GRIFFIN'S EARLY LIFE AND MINISTRY. 

Dr. Griffin's birthplace was East Haddam, Conn. 
The house in which he was born is now, or was till 
recently standing, and in possession of the Griffin family ; 
though occupied by a tenant and much out of repair. It 
is a plain two story house, with four principal rooms, and 
a large kitchen. In the first room, on the ground floor, 
as one enters the house, is a sleeping apartment, in which 
the eloquent preacher first saw the light. The next room 
is the parlor, whose walls are painted — the painting 
having been put on by Dr. Griffin himself, when he was a 
college student, in one of his vacations. The painting is 
uniform, except on the west side of the room. Upon 
this, is a rudely drawn sketch of a house, which serves 
to show that if the author had not then determined 
whether to become an artist or a divine, he made no 
mistake when he did determine. In this house, then the 
residence of a substantial farmer of the Puritan stock, by 
1 



10 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



the name of George Griffin, was born Edward Don- 
Griffin. Dorr was the family name of his mother, who 
was a sister of Rev. Edward Dorr, of Hartford. He 
was born Jan. 6, 1770, six years before the war of the 
Revolution. Of course his childhood was spent in 
troublous times — in times most unfavorable to religious 
impressions ; because the popular passions were deeply 
stirred by passing events, and all the immoral influences 
inevitably attending a war, were then abroad ; and even 
the ministry were to a great extent absorbed in the excite- 
ments and issues of the war. 

It arose probably from the circumstance that the uncle, 
for whom he was named, was childless, and would have 
adopted and educated him, had he not died too early to 
do it, that he was in the intentions of his parents, and in 
his own intentions, as soon as he was old enough to form 
them, devoted to the ministry. Neither of his parents 
made pretensions to piety. Yet from his birth this son 
was set apart to the ministry : and there is evidence that 
this fact being in his mind, did much to shape his course 
and his impressions in early life. And far as this fell 
short of that dedication to Christ, which believing parents 
make of their children in baptism, it shows how such a 
dedication, heartily made and reasoned from in parental 
exhortations, may be expected to do much, in its direct 
influence, to form the character of the child. 

The father of young Griffin was strong in native talent , 
and well educated in the common branches of education. 
The son was not put to the labor of the farm for want of 
sufficient health for it ; and for that cause, he was kept 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



11 



constantly at school, till he entered college, when he was 
sixteen years of age. But if his health was feeble, it 
did not prevent his attaining a giant's stature. His 
height was six feet and three inches, and his frame was 
noble and commanding. When in his state of highest 
health, he at one time weighed two hundred and sixty 
pounds ; nor was he then excessively corpulent. 

In his early childhood, he had frequent religious 
impressions ; and such was his power of abstraction, and 
such his attention to mental acts and states, that these in 
his after life could be remembered and described, as well 
as visible events. When he was but five years old, an 
older boy told him of death and a future state ; and it so 
alarmed him, that he was deeply affected for a whole day. 
At other times afterwards, he would be deeply affected in 
view of his sins and the condescension of God, and would 
be forced to pray, Once after distress of mind, he 
thought himself a Christian, and was so inflated with 
self-righteousness, as to be hardly able to admit that there 
were any Christians in the world but himself. Such a 
delusion of course soon vanished. 

He went to college with a purpose to be a minister, 
and of course with the expectation of being converted. 
He felt that if he was not converted in college, he never 
should be. When he entered on his last year in college, 
he awoke to a consciousness of his position, saw that he 
was not converted, and began to despair of being so at 
all. He then determined to study law, to throw off the 
restraints of conscience, and be in every sense a man of 
the world, though he did not allow himself in vicious 



12 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



courses. He left college, and taught an academy, in 
which employment he spent nine of the gayest months of 
his life. Here he was taken sick. Then the thought 
came upon him with force, if he could not bear this sick- 
ness for a little while, how could he bear the pains of 
hell forever ? Here he resolved upon a new life — as he 
had often done before. After his recovery, his impressions 
increased, a fact that is not usual in such cases. But 
it was several months before he allowed himself to hope 
that he was a Christian. And it is a remarkable fact, 
that during this struggle of mind, the thought of chang- 
ing his intentions as to his profession did not come up. 
After he had indulged a hope, he was still settled in his 
former purpose of being a lawyer ; and when the subject 
of the ministry was forced upon his mind, in the course 
of Providence, it occasioned a great struggle. He looked 
to God earnestly for his guidance ; he argued out the 
question in his mind, presenting the reasons of the case 
in order to himself. And while his mind was full of the 
question, he commenced hi one instance reading Christ's 
Sermon on the Mount, Here the character of Christ as 
a preacher opened to his view. The question came up, 
How did Christ, the only perfect example, spend his time 
while he was in this world? Not in contending who 
should have that flock of sheep, or that piece of ground, 
but in preaching the Gospel, and plucking souls as brands 
from the burning. His mind was settled at once, and 
completely, within a half an hour. His fond visions of 
attaining the highest civil honors vanished, and he was 
made willing to spend his days among the pagans of the 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 18 



wilderness. He soon, commenced the study of theolog} r , 
with the younger President Edwards, in New Haven — 
still attending to his duties as an instructor. He was 
licensed to preach in a little more than two years after he 
left college. He commenced his labors in his father's 
house, being himself the only Christian in a family of 
ten persons. He soon was instrumental in the conver- 
sion of his youngest sister, then of his mother and his 
brother's wife. • This he said was the beginning of Amer- 
ican revivals, so far as they fell under his personal obser- 
vation. He preached his first sermon in Hadlyme, in 
the pulpit of Kev. J oseph Vaill, with whom he fitted for 
college. He commenced his labors in New Salem, a 
small village near his father's house. A revival of great 
power took place there, and a church was gathered. In 
that neighborhood about a hundred were hopefully con- 
verted. Next he preached as a candidate in Farmington. 
Great divisions had existed there before his coming ; but 
he received a call, both from the parish and the church, 
and he accepted it. But before the meeting of the coun- 
cil for his ordination, a formidable opposition was organ- 
ized by those who dissented from his views as to baptism 
and the doctrines of grace, and the result was that he 
requested to be released from his obligations to assume 
the pastoral charge of that church. He preached' after- 
wards in several other places for a few Sabbaths. In 
1795, he was ordained as the pastor of the church in 
New Hartford. Almost as soon as he commenced preach- 
ing there, a revival commenced, which resulted in the 
addition of about fifty persons to the church. He married 



14 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



Frances Huntington, daughter of Kev. Dr. Joseph Hun- 
tington, and niece and adopted daughter of Governor 
Samuel Huntington, one of the signers of the Declaration 
of Independence. While he was at New Hartford, he 
was brought into intimate sympathy and co-operation with 
Key. Messrs. Mills, Gillet and Hallock, whose instrumen- 
tality in that revival of religion with which the present 
century opened was so distinguished, and whose praise is 
in all the churches. With them he labored abundantly 
in revivals, in other towns than his own ; and his labors 
among his own people were remarkably blessed. A par- 
ticular account of a great revival of religion at New 
Hartford under his ministry, was written by himself, and 
published in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine. 

After a pastorate term of five years, Mrs. Griffin's 
health failed. Her physicians advised, that for the sake 
of her health, he should remove to a milder climate. He 
gave his people then choice, whether to dismiss him at 
once, or to give him leave of absence, without continuing 
his salary, till he could make the experiment, whether her 
health would be benefitted by a change of climate. They 
chose the latter. He accepted an invitation to pass some 
time with Rev. Dr. Hillier, of New Jersey. There he 
preached often in the neighboring pulpits, making 
wherever he went a great impression. He supplied a va- 
cant pulpit in Orange for a winter. From hence he wrote 
to his former associate, Eev. Jeremiah Hallock, a letter, 
in which he laments the loss of his associates in the labor 
of revivals, and in which he says — " You know not how 
much I miss that precious and united brotherhood of min- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 15 

isters. The ministers here are agreeable, friendly and 
pious. But I have not prayed, and wept, and triumphed 
with them. I shall never see such another circle." 

A revival commenced here, and went forward with 
great power. The people were desirous of settling him. 
But he discouraged them, on the ground that if the health 
of Mrs. Griffin would permit him to remain at New Hartr 
ford, he was unwilling to leave it for any other place. He 
was conscientious about this ; and nearly forty years after- 
wards, in conversation with the writer about a pastor's 
being dismissed for his wife's occasions, he said, in a play- 
ful way, in the presence of Mrs. Griffin, " I should have 
been in New Hartford now, had it not been for Fanny ; 
and Fanny knows it." 

The people of Newark without his knowledge of their 
intentions, made out for him a call to settle with them, as 
a colleague with Dr. McWhorter ; and when the matter 
was brought to the test, it was decided to be his duty to 
accept of it ; and he was installed in Newark, in October, 
1801. His congregation was one of the largest in the 
country, and of a high character for intelligence. The 
first we learn of him after his settlement is, that he is on 
a preaching tour in the neighboring congregations. His 
labors in Newark were signally blessed. In 1807, there 
was a great revival under them ; ninety-seven joined the 
church in one day, and in all about two hundred from 
that revival. Nor was his influence confined to his own 
people. He frequently travelled two or three weeks at a 
time, in company with some other minister, in the more 



16 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



destitute parts of New Jersey, preaching wherever occa- 
sion offered. 

In 1809, lie left Newark, to become Professor of Pul- 
pit Eloquence in the Theological Seminary at Andover. 
In his farewell sermon preached at Newark, he reviewed 
his ministry there, and stated that eight years before, the 
church consisted of two hundred and two members, of 
whom one hundred and forty-six still remained. Since 
that, there had been admitted four hundred and thirty- 
four, of whom three hundred and seventy-six still re- 
mained. So that he left the church with a membership of 
five hundred and twenty-two. 



CHAPTER II. 



HIS LABORS IN BOSTON AND AND OVER. 

When Dr. Griffin went to Andover, the institution was 
in its infancy. It was making for the whole country the 
experiment — for it was then an experiment — of a college 
training for theological students, preparing for the minis- 
try. It had opened with most encouraging prospects, and 
his reputation and labors added materially to its increase. 
The students, being about thirty when he went there, were 
sixty before he left. 

Few men have ever had qualities of mind better fitting 
them for the instruction of preachers in pulpit eloquence. 
In force of eloquence in the pulpit, he has been rarely ex- 
ceeded ; as an instructor, capable of conveying his own 
resources to others, he especially excelled. But Provi- 
dence did not design him for a permanent laborer in that 
field, and his term of service there was evidently made 
shorter by his connection with Park Street Church, in Bos- 
ton. For soon after he commenced his labors at Andover, 
he took the charge of the enterprise of gathering the Park 
Street Church. That whole work went forward under his 
labors and direction. The confession of faith and cove- 
nant were drawn up by him ; and he was as much the 
pastor of the church before its organization, and before 
his installation, as he was afterwards. The rearing of this 



18 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

church, and all the hostile influences of that day, was no 
trifle ; and it laid no small tax of care, anxiety and labor 
on the minister, who was the adviser of all measures, and 
the spiritual guide of the newly gathered people. Yet, 
while Dr. Griffin lectured at Andoyer to the students, and 
sustained all the responsibilities of a professor there, he 
bore all these responsibilities in Boston. At first, his work 
at Andover was regarded as his principal work. But 
gradually, that at Boston so grew upon him as to prepon- 
derate, and withdrew him from Andoyer. Finally, the 
question presented itself to Dr. Griffin, between Andoyer 
and Boston. He said, " I have made up my mind that 
I cannot, after this winter, be connected with two worlds. 
In this, all my friends both at Andoyer and Boston are 
agreed. If a young man is settled in Park Street, he 
must stand alone and unsupported. Will this do ? Who 
of you all will come to Park Street ? If nobody else will, 
I must come." The Park Street Church first gave a call 
to Dr. Henry Kollock, of Savannah, one of the most elo- 
quent preachers — and his presbytery refused to dismiss 
him, and he declined. They then voted a unanimous call 
to Dr. Griffin. He was present, and stated on the spot 
some reasons why his acceptance was out of the question ; 
one of which was his obligations to Andover. But the 
church 0*ave calls to other distinguished ministers, with no 
better success than in the first instance. And gradually 
his mind began to admit impressions more favorable to his 
acceptance. 

Meanwhile, the students at Andover sent him a letter, 
in which they say, ' ' We earnestly request you, for our 



RECOLLECTIONS OF BR. GRIFFIN. 19 



personal benefit, for the general good of the sacred insti- 
tution, and for the momentous interests of the church, to 
continue the relations which you sustain to us." They 
also wrote to Mr. Bartlett, a patron of the Seminary, 
unanimously requesting him to press Dr. Griffin to 
remain. 

But he at length decided in favor of Boston. There 
was an element of his decision, which has not appeared in 
any published accounts of the matter. His residence at 
Andover had been made unpleasant to himself by an un- 
generous use which had been made of a weakness of his, 
and also of an incident in which blame had been attributed 
to him in public rumor, but in which, as it was afterwards 
shown, he was entirely blameless. The weakness of his 
was in a matter of expense for the gratification of his 
taste. Mr. Bartlett, one of the liberal founders of the 
Seminary, was a great admirer of him, and anxious to make 
his residence at Andover comfortable. So he allowed him 
to build for himself a house, according to his own wish, 
and call on him to pay the bills. In doing this, Dr. 
Griffin laid out great expense in preparing the ground 
about the house, for his taste in such matters exceeded his 
judgment ; and by extravagant calculations, he built at 
double the expense that he or his friends expected would 
be put upon the house. Mr. Bartlett paid the bills, with- 
out at all withdrawing his friendship for Dr. Griffin, prob- 
ably putting the true construction upon it, that Dr. Grif- 
fin's skill and judgment in house building were not equal 
to his skill in sermonizing. But though Mr. Bartlett did 
not make it an offence, many others did, and it was a 



20 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

means of making his position uncomfortable there, and 
probably of making him more inclined to hear a call to 
another field. 

If we go back to the year 1813. and survey the state 
of things in Boston, we may form some idea of the diffi- 
culties of the task which he undertook there. Then there 
was but a forlorn remnant of orthodox people there. Less 
than one hundred years before that, Cotton Mather had 
said that there was not a minister known in New Eng- 
land, that denied the proper divinity of Christ ; and now 
there was but one pastor of the Congregational churches 
in Boston that held it. Unitarianism had been brought 
in gradually, and by stealth ; so that little was here known 
of its progress, till it had effectually secured the centres 
of influence in Massachusetts. Then the Unitarians in 
England, indiscreetly boasted of their wide conquests here. 
This boast was taken up here by the orthodox, and the 
apostate ministers were challenged to come out and avow 
themselves. This led to an explosion. The mask was 
thrown off; and it was found that in Boston, everything 
was gone from orthodoxy except the Old South. Within 
a radius of fifteen miles from Boston, the centre, not ten 
Congregational pastors could be found, holding the truth 
as it is in Jesus. This revelation did not however take 
place till after the Park Street enterprise had commenced. 
But as early as the above date, 1803, all this desolation 
actually existed, though it was little known or thought of. 
There was no orthodox Congregational minister of Boston, 
except Dr. Eckley, of the Old South. Religion was every- 
where reduced to a matter of mere form — a necessary ele- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 21 



ment of civilization — having little to do with the salva- 
tion of men. But there were a few individuals who wept 
in secret places over the desolations, and had not wholly 
despaired of the cause of truth. A few pious women had 
sustained a private prayer meeting. In 1804, a few 
brethren of the Old South Church, not exceeding eight in 
number, moved, in view of the general decay of religion, 
made an effort to have a public evening lecture estab- 
lished. The church agreed to the proposal, but the pew 
proprietors prevented it. Then eight brethren formed 
what they called " a society for religious improvement,' ' 
not daring to call it a conference meeting. But such was 
their inexperience in such things, that they could not have 
a prayer meeting ; for none of them ventured to lead in 
social prayer. They read the Scriptures, and held reli- 
gious conversations. In about a month, they were able 
to pray. Then they persuaded Dr. Eckley to sustain a 
weekly lecture in a private house. They also continued 
their prayer meeting. And in this meeting was conceived 
the impulse and the purpose, to build a new meeting 
house, where the Gospel could be preached without restric- 
tion. The fact was, that a large portion, probably a ma- 
jority of the pew holders in the Old South society were at 
that time Unitarians, and ready to put restrictions on every 
movement that would promote spiritual religion. These 
restrictions, so trying to these members of the church, 
awaking to a new sense of their Christian responsibilities, 
begat the first thoughts of building the Park Street meet- 
ing house. 

As soon as this idea got abroad, it was opposed by the 



22 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



Old South Church, on the ground that it would injure 
that church. While this thing was under discussion, and 
while opposition increased, importunate prayer was con- 
tinued by an increasing circle of friends ; and new friends 
to the enterprise came in. This state of things continued 
for five years — the prayer meeting being for that time 
the attracting centre, around which the remnants of evan- 
gelical religion in Boston collected. Then in 1809, the 
resolution to build the Park Street Church was taken up 
for execution. And when that went into effect, the 
prayer meeting resolved itself into the Park Street Church. 
The restrictions laid upon the preaching of the Gospel in 
the Old South, had given life and impulse to the prayer 
meeting ; and the prayer meeting begat the church, in 
which the Gospel could be preached without let or hin- 
drance. But the feelings of the Boston people, almost 
universally, were opposed to any attempts to bring back 
the truth as it is in Jesus, to that city. And now one 
going in there, as Dr. Griffin did, must make a sacrifice 
of himself. One of the first attempts to put him down, 
was the raising of scandalous reports against his character, 
to the effect that he had left Newark by reason of some 
flagrant misdemeanors there. These reports reaching 
Newark, were received with an outburst of indignation. 
The session, the deacons and trustees of the church there 
all signed a document, declaring their utter falsity ; and 
Dr. Richards, the pastor of the church, declared that if 
it were desired, he could get the signatures of all the 
church, containing more than five hundred members. 
After Dr. Griffin had been on the ground a little 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



23 



while, he said in a letter to a friend — " The church has 
been from the beginning viewed as a kind of monster, 
which was erecting its head, and opening its month, to 
swallow np men, women and children ; and which, by its 
terrifying roar, was about to drive sleep from every family 
in town, and to scare people of weak nerves out of their 
wits." Most of the ministers of the town and vicinity 
were present to hear Dr. Griffin's dedicatory sermon, in 
which he attempted to show the difference between the 
religion of Boston, and that of the orthodox. In a few 
hours after it was preached, a thousand copies were sub- 
scribed for, that it might be printed. In the same letter 
he said, " you can form no adequate idea of the strength 
of Satan's kingdom in this town and vicinity. Our 
church has been overwhelmed with contempt. The Ca- 
tholicism of Boston is the most intolerant bigotry I ever 
witnessed, when directed towards the religion of Christ." 

As to the public reception of his dedication sermon, he 
said, " A little periodical work entitled ' Something,' has 
been nibbling at it for several weeks ; and the last num- 
ber of the Monthly Anthology opened its mouth as wide 
as a shark's, and devoured it at once. They have proved 
that the style is horrid, that the doctrines are worse, and 
that I have made at least four or five persons in the Trin- 
ity." You have no conception of the falsehoods which 
are propagated, and the pains which are taken to prevent 
people from coming to our church. But the more they 
try to prevent, the more the people will not mind them. 
A part of these means of prevention doubtless, was what 
tradition asserts respecting the sprinkling of a trail of 



24 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



sulphur on the sidewalks extending from Dr. Griffin's 
residence to the steps of Park Street Church. 

The mention here made of the Anthology, suggests a 
thought of the means and resources for assault, which 
the Unitarians then had. It was a most singular state of 
things in which the Unitarians had secured to themselves 
the incompatible advantages at once of peace and war. 
The Anthology was a magazine conducted by ministers in 
the highest rank for talent, commanding all the fascinations 
of elegant letters belonging to the gifted and amiable Buck- 
minster and his compeers. In literature it was what its 
name imports. In religion, it was a masked warrior 
stabbing with concealed weapons, and Indian-like firing 
from behind the bush. Under a pretence of a mere lib- 
eralizing of the Puritan faith, and sustaining a party of 
liberality and progress, it carried on a most deadly war- 
fare against that faith. No Unitarian periodical, nor all 
Unitarian periodicals together, have since effected so much 
in the same time, to destroy men's faith in the doctrines 
of the cross, as did that insidious foe. Because its work 
was in the dark, and so conducted that few out of the 
great mass were aware of its real purpose. It used all 
sorts of arguments to persuade men to be Unitarians, 
without mentioning the name. 

The methods of persuasion in the Unitarian literature 
of that time, may be exemplified in the following extract 
from the General Repository, edited by Prof. Norton — 
which, if our memory serves, was one of the successive 
names and forms into which the Anthology developed 
itself. In that work for April, 1813, we have the follow- 





RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 25 



ing question and answer : " What is the best policy for 
a layman, wishing the votes of the people, to adopt in 
regard to his religious profession ? The answer in New 
England is apt to be, that Calvinism is the best aid to an 
ambitious man. Our answer, however, is opposed to 
this. We believe from theory and from fact, that catholic 
[liberal] Christianity is better adapted to conciliate the affec- 
• tions of the people as a body, than any form of sectarian- 
ism. If this be so, it will follow that catholic Christians: 
are more likely than sectarists to obtain such political sit- 
uations as shall give them influence and power," With 
such hints, the Unitarian literature of that day, beckoned 
to ambitious men, to flock to its standard, and in troops 
they obeyed the signal. The popular mind had been so 
formed, that the literature of the day had a commanding 
influence in swaying the currents of religious thought. 
Even sermons were more valued according to their liter- 
ary merits, than according to their religious force and 
truth ; and the leading ministers of the day plumed 
themselves on their literary character. In such a time it 
was no small matter for the solitary minister of Park 
Street Church, to face the battery of the Unitarian peri- 
odical literature. 

But the Unitarian pulpit in Boston was then power- 
fully manned and worked. We wonder not at the solici- 
tude of the Park Street brethren, to secure a preacher 
of commanding pulpit talents. For their preacher must 
stand, if stand he could, against no mean antagonists. 
Not in point of merit, but in point of popular attraction, 
Holley, of Hollis Street Church, stood in the first posi- 
2 



26 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



tion. Then the star of Brattle Street Church, the truly 
eloquent and fascinating Buckminster, emitted a rare 
brilliance. Then the renowned Channing was just at 
that time culminating towards the zenith of his fame. It 
was no small affair for a stranger to come into Boston at 
that time, and take a position between those three men, 
and attempt to lift up in spite of them the down-trodden 
truth, and attempt to command a hearing among hosannas 
rendered to the idolized that we have named. 

Foremost in this trio was Holley, a man of brilliant 
parts and quick instincts to scent the popular humors. 
He had been a pastor of the church in Greenfield, Conn., 
the successor there of Dr. Dwight — settled on his recom- 
mendation. He was preaching as a candidate in one of 
the most desirable Presbyterian churches in Albany. He 
went to Boston to get an introduction to the Hollis Street 
Church, then vacant. Dr. Codman, then commencing 
the ministry, was preaching there as a supply — not 
desiring a settlement, because the church was divided, 
between what was then the old and the new theology. 
He introduced him, and secured for him an opportunity 
to preach. He told Mr. Codman, that he was determined 
to settle, either there or in Albany. In preaching his 
first sermon, he adjusted his discourse to carry his point 
with both parties. It was communion Sabbath. His 
itext was — He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, 
eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. He com- 
menced his sermon in words to this effect : " He that 
partakes of the Lord's Supper, without being able to 
subscribe to the five points of Calvinism, eats and drinks 



RECOLLECTIONS OP DR. GRIFFIN. 27 

damnation to himself ! [A long pause.] Who says 
this ? Not I." Having thus set up a man of straw, he 
launched forth in eloquent invective against the imaginary 
monster, that held such a doctrine. His reputation for 
orthodoxy satisfied the orthodox, who were glad, on any 
terms, to see the other party pleased with one of their 
side ; and his discourse evinced such a sympathy with 
errorists, as made the others sure of their man. So that 
the question of his settlement was solved before his first 
sermon was half finished. After his settlement, he was 
classed with the -Orthodox for a while, and until his 
preaching made it impossible even to seem to hold that 
position. He abounded in professions of orthodoxy and 
in contradictions of it ; his intimate sympathies, uncon- 
cealed, were with the grossest errorists. His house was 
crowded. His fame covered the continent. There was 
no pulpit eloquence in Boston so commanding as his. 
Visitors in Boston found it indispensable to hear this 
splendid preacher, as one of the lions of the place. The 
stars of the theatres paled before him. For many ; : - 
he was the admiration of the learned, the idol of the 
populace, and wholly a none-such among preachers. But 
at length the tide began to ebb — his true character was 
appreciated, and finally his day went down in an impene- 
trable cloud, and his name so recently on every tongue, 
then asked the charity of oblivion. 

We recollect that when his death was made a subject of 
public remark, Dr. Griffin in conversation alluded to it, 
and said that he had been questioning his own feelings 
about it ; and was happy to find that there was nothing in 



28 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



them but compassion for the man, nothing like a sense of 
triumph and exultation over a fallen foe — intimating 
that he had formerly suffered much from his antagonism. 

Br. Griffin did not assume his position in Park Street, 
without being aware of its difficulties. Dr. Spring, of 
Newburyport, said to him, " You seem like a man placed 
upright upon the point of a steeple, with nothing to hold 
by • how will you stand ? " "I have God to hold by," 
was his answer. But this was not the only point at 
which Dr. Griffin was pressed by the difficulties of his 
position. Besides all this, he had the difficulties of a 
bold experiment, in building an infant church on ground 
where there were no lack of preachers sustained by the 
common mind. The house was built at an expense of 
seventy thousand dollars, and after the sale of the pews, 
as far as it could be made, there was a debt of thirty 
thousand upon it. Then, as if to crush all their hopes, 
the war with Great Britain, with all the distress and 
stagnation of business which it brought upon Boston, 
came in just as their enterprise had fairly opened. Though 
individuals pledged themselves on condition of Dr. Grif- 
fin's accepting the pastorate, that they would assume and 
absorb the debt, it was yet so much of a burden on the 
people, on whom he relied. It was a mere shifting of the 
form and place in which the burden pressed. 

Dr. Griffin's main hopes had been placed in revivals of 
religion, which in all other instances had been sure to 
attend his preaching. But it was found that as the com- 
mon mind in Boston was more ignorant of the doctrines 
of the cross, it was less susceptible, and farther removed 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 29 



from that which is the power of God unto salvation. 
Writing in 1813, he says : — 

" Our affairs go on pretty much after the old way. 
The small degree of Divine influence with which we have 
been favored, has brought ninety-one persons into our 
inquiry meeting within a year and a half. Sabbath after 
next, I expect to admit to the church eleven persons. 
Still there are trials and discouragements, which some- 
times almost tempt me to give out. Boston folks will 
be Boston folks still. They will not retrench their habits 
nor lose a nap at church to save their lives." This was 
said soon after he had delivered his Park Street lectures. 
These were given on Sabbath evenings, to immense 
assemblies of friends and foes. And if he had accom- 
plished no other work while he was in Boston than the 
production and publication of these lectures, his mission 
to Boston would have been far from a failure. Much as 
has been the good done by that work already, it has 
scarcely begun its work. It is now more read than ever 
before. 

In 1814, he writes : "I have no good news to com- 
municate respecting our affairs in Boston. It does not 
please the Head of the church to refresh us with his influ- 
ence. We all remain cold and hard as rocks." Hie 
position was more and more discouraging. His peo- 
ple felt the pressure that was upon them, to such a 
degree, as very much to discourage new additions to 
them. Some of them wanted that boldness which would 
encourage to the full extent his habit of declaring all the 
counsel of God. While they admired his eloquence and 



80 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

power as a preacher, they thought that these would serve 
a better purpose, if he temporized somewhat in his matter 
and manner. Hence the people were not, in the latter 
part of the time, wholly united in their support of him. 
And this, added to all his other troubles, was the straw 
that broke the camel's back. He remained there till the 
spring of 1815, when he accepted a call to return to 
Newark, to take charge of a church that had been 
formed by colonizing from the church that he formerly 
left ; so that he returned in part to his former people. 

But in no sense was his mission to Boston a failure. 
His attempt to carry forward the Park Street enterprise 
to a completely unembarrassed position, did not succeed. 
But his attempt to gather the church, and lay its foundation, 
and meet the first shocks of the battle in defence of evan- 
gelical truth in Boston, did not fail. God made use of 
him to break and turn the tide that was bearing all before 
it, and gave him such a measure of success, that when he 
was removed to another field, the church under another 
pastor was able to hold its position, and became the 
mother of other churches. " Thus according to the 
grace of God, which was given to him, as a wise master 
builder, he had laid the foundation, and others built 
thereupon." 

Dr. Grifnn had been in Newark a little more than a 
year, when a general revival extended through his and 
the other congregation. DuVing this time he was in 
labors more abundant. The spiritual lessons which he 
learned in Boston, are thus recorded in his journal, after 
his return to Newark : " Never was I so restless and 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 31 



unhappy as when most elevated in view of the world. 
I was tired of such public life, and longed to retire. I 
have retired; and during the year and nine months 
which I have spent here, have been the most tranquil 
that I ever was in any situation. Convinced by experi- 
rience of the vanity and even the torture of worldly 
distinction, I seem to have given up all desire for it." 
His ministry to this church continued till he was called 
to the Presidency of Williams College, of which more 
full information will be given in the following pages. 



CHAPTER III. 



HIS ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE, AND THE 
CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH IT. 

Our first acquaintance with him took place when he 
became President of Williams College, in the fall of the 
year 1821, which was the commencement of our last year 
in college. He was the almost exclusive instructor of the 
senior class for that year, and afterwards our instructor in 
theology. For, when Dr. Griffin commenced at Wil- 
liamstown, he wished to make the experiment of teaching 
a theological class, in connection with his other labors. 
He purposed to do little more, however, than to direct 
their studies, and meet them one hour in a week for exer- 
cises and criticisms of various kinds. He made the ex- 
periment with one class, and continued it no further. 
The acquaintance here formed, was continued with oppor- 
tunities more or less frequent till his death. 

Not aiming now at a portrait of his character, we pur- 
pose to recall and present such incidents as may furnish, 
in single features, a few materials for such a portrait. The 
first impressions which he made upon our mind, were made 
at a crisis in the college with which we were connected ; 
and as no event of his life was probably more fruitful in 
important results, it will be pertinent to our purpose to 
give a sketch of it. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 33 



The college had done good service more than a quarter 
of a century, on a small endowment, and with a small 
number of instructors. But there seemed to be obstacles 
to its increase ; and many of its friends had been discour- 
aged, in view of its prospects as it was then situated, and 
advised a removal of it to what was thought would be a 
imore favorable location. In the fall of 1814, some sug- 
gestions were made in the Board of Trustees, in their 
private session, but not with any serious intent of present 
action, about the removal of the college. The suggestion 
took wind, and spread like fire. The college was agitated, 
and the public mind was agitated about it. In the midst 
of this agitation, President Fitch resigned. Dr. Moore, 
elected as his successor, assumed the office with the full 
expectation that the college was to be removed, though 
probably without any pledge being given him to that ef- 
fect. Holding his place with that expectation, honestly 
entertained, he of course did nothing with a view to fix 
the college in its existing location. During ihe six years 
of his presidency, the question of its removal was in con- 
stant agitation. The argument was, that the college, 
where it was, could never prosper ; and while such an ar- 
gument was in use, it would of course enforce its own 
conclusion. Few students would attach themselves to a 
falling interest. At length a majority of the trustees 
voted to petition the Legislature for a removal of the col- 
lege. The Legislature, after an earnest discussion nega- 
tived the petition, by the adoption of the advice of a com- 
mittee, who reported that such a removal was neither law- 
ful nor expedient. The difficulty was, that the funds 



34 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



given by Colonel Williams, the founder of the college, 
and others, had been given for the purpose of being ap- 
plied in Willi amstoivn ; and that it would be a violation 
of the will of the donor to transfer them to another place. 

This decision of the Legislature stood on such good 
ground that there was no hope of securing its reversal by 
another application, and it was acquiesced in by all con- 
cerned. But the agitation had awakened an extensive 
desire, to have a college in what was regarded a better lo- 
cation, in the western part of the State. A special im- 
pulse had been given to this desire, from the fact that the 
main college of the State had changed its original charac- 
ter, and become a seminary of Unitarianism. It was, by 
many, felt that Williams College never could furnish for 
the Orthodox of the State what they needed, to balance 
the influence going out from Cambridge. Seeing there- 
fore that Williams College could not be removed, it was 
thought by many that it had better be abandoned, and a 
new one built in a more favorable location. It hardly 
entered into the dreams of any one at that time, that we 
should ever see, what we now see, two colleges in such 
near neighborhood, each of which has double the number 
of students that Williams College had before the question 
of its removal was agitated, and that Williams College 
would have acquired a vigor and character capable of a 
successful competition with any other college. The conclu- 
sion that the public good required that an institution which 
had done such good service should be let alone to die — - 
this conclusion, reached by a large portion of the Ortho- 
dox in the State, was in itself a heavy blow to Williams 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 35 



College. If it was hard to maintain its existence before 
the question was agitated, much harder was it now. 
Measures were entered upon speedily for founding a col- 
lege at Amherst, sustained with great zeal and liberality 
by the numerous friends of the enterprise, and leaving the 
few remaining friends of Williams College disheartened to 
the last degree. 

At this point, another severe blow fell upon the college. 
Dr. Moore, the President of the college, received an invi- 
tation to the presidency of the new college at Amherst. 
He left town in the spring vacation, without a thought of 
such a thing being entertained by the students, most of 
whom had a high veneration for him. At the commence- 
ment of the summer term he came into the chapel, and 
announced to the students that he had received such an 
invitation ; and that he had accepted it, with the provision 
that he should perform the duties of his office at Williams- 
town till the ensuing commencement, and then remove to 
Amherst. This fell upon the students like a thunderbolt. 
One would have supposed, from the strong attachment 
which the students felt for the President, that the whole 
would have resolved in a body to follow him. There 
came up at once, however, a division of feeling among 
them. The students then numbered about eighty, of 
whom nearly one half resolved to go to Amherst, or to 
other colleges. The rest determined to remain at Wil- 
liam stown. Some who despaired of Williams College, 
were unwilling to go to Amherst, because it was a new 
college, and could not of course afford equal advantages 
with the older institutions. Hence, they went to other 



36 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

colleges ; and at the commencement of that year the num- 
ber of students in Williams College, small as it was be- 
fore, was diminished nearly one half. 

During the summer term there was more debating than 
studying. College students are generally a very conse- 
quential class of men • and those who were then at Wil- 
liams felt that, in the circumstances, a considerable part 
of the world rested on their shoulders, and that their ac- 
tion was to decide the question of the life or death of the 
college. The conflict increased their zeal; the one party 
thought that their abandonment of the college would de- 
stroy it for the public good, and the other, that the col- 
lege could not die while it enjoyed their powerful pres- 
ence and support. A specimen of the measures agitated 
by these college killers and college preservers, is seen in 
this : — A movement was made to transfer the library, 
which belonged to the literary societies in the college, — 
a library which had grown from the contributions of all 
the preceding classes, — to Amherst College ; a project so 
decidedly juvenile, that, had not its opposers been equally 
juvenile, they woiild have made no resistance to it, but 
would have r enjoyed the sport of seeing how far that joke 
could be carried. As it was, the parties joined issue in 
regularly called meetings, to discuss the question, whether 
the public good did not require that one of the libraries 
appertaining to Williams College should be removed to 
Amherst. The debates, and the ruling of points of order 
in those meetings, as they now rise in memory, are really 
laughable. Never was a meeting in more solemn earnest. 
Never were a body of men more penetrated with the feel- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN* 



87 



ing that the fate of the nation depended on their action. 
Suffice it to say, the books did not move. But this spe- 
cimen will show how the minds of the students were 
perpetually moved, during that term of interregnum. 

While the college was in this state of anarchy, the trus- 
tees were anxiously laboring to secure another President, 
and to restore the former prosperity. Many were in 
doubt whether, after a stroke so paralyzing, the corpora- 
tion would even attempt anything. ' But at the time of 
what was called the senior examination, when a part of 
the trustees met to examine the class preparatory to their 
graduation, the venerable Dr. Hyde called the students 
together in the chapel, and addressed them. Regretting 
the loss of the President so much valued, he remarked 
that though the President was about to retire, the guardi- 
ans of the college would remain ; and they were deter- 
mined, by the help of God, that the college should he sus- 
tained. So deeply had the hopes of the friends of the 
college been depressed, that even such a declaration as 
this, — the fact that such a careful man had the courage 
to say even this, — had a great effect in restoring hope and 
zeal. But when the first acts of the trustees became 
known, with their results, the clouds returned. They had 
elected Prof. Goodrich, of Yale College, to be their Pres- 
ident, and he had declined. They next elected Dr. Ma- 
cauley, then Professor in Union College, and he had de- 
clined. Now the hope and patience of the conservative 
party among the students were put to a severe trial. 
Many were the taunts and jeers which they experienced 
from the other side. Such a dialogue as this actually oc- 



38 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 




curred after these repeated disappointments : ' 1 Who is to 
be the next President of Williams College?" " 0, I 
don't know; probably Dr. Griffin, or Dr. Mason, or Dr. 
Spring, or some such, person ! " As though the idea that 
either of those persons would accept the office, was too 
preposterous to be thought of. Commencement was now 
approaching, and little, for a while, had been heard of the 
action of the trustees. The exercises of the commence- 
ment went forward as usual ; but among the distinguished 
guests upon the stage, there appeared the majestic form of 
a stranger, — a person about fifty years of age, of most 
comman sling figure and presence. Then it was first 
known that Dr. Griffin had been elected to the Presiden- 
cy of the college ; and that he had come on to settle the 
question of his acceptance. That a person of such a rep- 
utation as he then sustained, being at the zenith of his 
popularity, was willing to entertain the question at all, 
was a great point gained by the friends of the college. 
The elevated hopes which his presence inspired caused 
the business of the day, which had promised to be gloomy 
enough, to pass off with all the cheerfulness which ordi- 
narily belongs to the annual festival of a college. 

As we now look back on the course of Providence, in 
relation to Williams College, at the time when the ques- 
tion of its life seemed in suspense, and trace the happy 
issues of the appointments of Providence there made, we 
see that the friends of the college did not over value the 
interest which they had in Dr. Griffin's acceptance of the 
Presidency. If a person of less distinguished reputation, 
at that time, had taken the office, the college might soon 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 39 



have died. He seemed to be the only one that both 
could and would save it. All parties then concurred in 
the opinion that Williams and Amherst Colleges could not 
both live and prosper. If that measure of prosperity 
which has since been attained by both these institutions 
had been foretold at that time, the prophet so foretelling 
would have been taken for a lunatic. The new college 
had the advantage, both as to location and the number of 
its friends; so that the preponderance of chances was 
against Williams College. It was rather expected to die 
than live. But now, the fact that one whose reputation 
as a scholar and a preacher was adequate to the demands 
of the Presidency in any college, should at this time have 
been willing to connect himself with the fortunes of the 
college, was not only a ground of hope, but a cause of 
success. 

A consideration which seemed to have great influence 
in determining Dr. Griffin's mind to assume the proffered 
charge, grew out of the fact of this college having been 
the birthplace and cradle of the enterprise of Foreign 
Missions. Other causes existed for his leaving Newark 
when he did, and he had other invitations to assume 
responsible charges. But as far as we can Judge, from 
what he said in occasional references to the subject after- 
wards, this was a controlling reason with him. He made 
a very impressive reference to it in his inaugural dis- 
course, which was never published. He was the more 
interested in this feature of the college, from the fact that 
his ministry had opened in the midst of those revivals of 
religion in Litchfield County, Ct., from which the young 



40 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



men, who became the pioneers of the Missionary enter- 
prise went forth. He was first settled in the ministry in 
New Hartford, Ct., and his first labors in the ministry 
took their impulse and direction, therefore, in intimate 
association with that remarkable trio of the ministers of 
God, Hallock, Mills and Gillet, and in the midst of won- 
derful revivals of religion. He saw the connection which 
those revivals, in which his youthful labors had been 
spent, had had with most interesting events in the his- 
tory of Williams College. He saw flowing through its 
history currents of influence which himself had generated. 
This fact drew his mind towards the college, in the hour 
of its peril, with great force. But let us hear him give 
his own account of this. Speaking of the year 1792, 
which gave date to the origin of the college, he said : — 
" In that year the first of those institutions which 
modern charity has planned, and which now cover the 
face of the Protestant world, arose in England. In that 
year commenced the series of revivals in America, which 
has never been interrupted, night or day, and which 
never will be until the earth is full of the glory of God 
as the waters cover the sea. In pondering on the desti- 
nies of this college, in illumined moments, — in moments 
of intense interest, — it has been no indifferent thought 
that it arose into being at that point of time, — that it 
opened into the world when those other institutions began 
to open which are full of salvation, when that moral 
change began which swept from so large a part of New 
England its looseness of doctrine and laxity of discipline, 
and awakened an evangelical pulse in the veins of the 



RECOLLECTIONS OP DR. GRIFFIN. 41 



American church. Whatever has particularly connected 
this college with this march of the Redeemer's kingdom, 
and especially with these revivals, has carried with it an 
absorbing interest. I love to consider it as related, — 
even distantly related to these things." 

11 It was my happinass to be early carried, by the 
providence of God, to Litchfield County, and to be fixed 
in that scene where the heavenly influence was to send 
out its stronger radiations to different parts of the coun- 
try; where thrice twenty congregations, in continuous 
counties, were laid down in one field of divine wonders. 
Then it was my privilege to be most intimately associated 
with such men as Mills, and Grillet, and Hallock, — 
names which will be ever dear to the church on earth, — 
and some of which are now familiar in heaven. Their 
voices, which I often heard in the silent grove, and in the 
sacred assemblies which followed, and in the many, many 
meetings, from town to town, have identified them in my 
mind with all those precious revivals which opened the 
dawn of a new day upon our country." 

After mentioning names and individual histories to 
show that most of the early religious influence in the col- 
lege came out of those revivals in Litchfield County, he 
! says : <e It filled me with gratitude and wonder to discover 
that the religious destinies of the college, which are now 
i opening with such unspeakable interest upon my age, 
j received such an impression from the revivals in which I 
spent the labors of my youth." Having spoken of a 
revival in Williamstown, in 1806, he said : " That spring 
was made memorable to the college by the admission to its 
3 



42 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



bosom of those two distinguished youth, Gordon Hall 
and Samuel J. Mills. Mills was the son of my early 
friend, Samuel J. Mills, of Torringford, — was known 
to me from a child, and received his permanent impres- 
sions, in one of the most glorious revivals I have ever 
seen, in 1798. He at once devoted himself to the cause 
of missions, and with a heart glowing with this desire, 
entered upon his course of education. He had joined a 
class in which were such men as James Richards and R. 
C. Robbins. The Spirit of God fell upon the class. In 
the course of the summer, eight or ten of that class 
became the subjects of the work, and one or two others, 
among whom was Gordon Hall. And Mills prevailed to 
diffuse, through a circle of choice spirits, the zeal for 
missions which actuated his own breast. On Wednesday 
afternoons they used to retire for prayer to the valley, 
south of the West College ; and on Saturday afternoons, 
when they had more leisure, to the remote meadow on 
the banks of the Hoosac, and there under the haystacks, 
those young Elijahs prayed into existence the embryo of 
American missions. They formed a society, unknown to 
any but themselves, to make inquiries and organize plans 
for future missions. They carried this society with them 
to Andover, where it has reared into missionaries most 
that have gone to the heathen, and where it is still exert- 
ing a powerful influence on the interests of the world. 
The society was originated by Mills, and was formed by 
Mills, Richards and'Fiske, and two or three others, in 
the spring of 1808, in the northwest lower room of the 
East College. The scene under the haystack was in the 
fall of that year." 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



43 



It is a fact which made a great impression on Dr. 
Griffin's mind in connection with these other events, that 
the main instrument which these young men made use of, 
to arouse themselves and others to the missionary spirit 
and work, was a Missionary Sermon which had been 
preached by him at Philadelphia. This sermon, for 
those times, was in itself a wonder. Its views were 
wholly in advance of the age, and they were put forth 
with an eloquence and power, which Dr. Griffin after- 
wards rarely if ever exceeded. These young men had 
an edition of this sermon printed for their use and distri- 
bution. The writer of this recollects attending a school 
at that time, taught by one of the pious students of Wil- 
liams College, but not one of the company of missiona- 
ries, and of being a witness to the efforts of that school 
teacher in distributing that sermon. His recollection is 
distinct, of carrying home a copy of the sermon, and 
thereafter; in his childhood, of having read it, and re-read 
it, times without number. Dr. Griffin, knowing what 
instrumentality his own mind, through that sermon and 
otherwise, had exerted in giving the missionary impulse 
to the minds of those young men, very naturally felt, 
that their enterprise was in some sense his own. 

He said, " I have been in situations to know, that 
from the counsels in that sacred conclave, or from the 
mind of Mills himself, artfse the American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the American Bible 
Society, the United Foreign Missionary Society, besides 
ajl the impetus given to the Colonization Society. If I 
had any instrumentality in originating these measures, in 



44 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



every instance, I received the first impulse from Samuel 
J. Mills." 

Now taking into view these matters of history, already 
in Dr. Griffin's mind, and his personal connections with 
them, we find in them a powerful cause operating to 
incline him to throw his influence into the scale in behalf 
of the college, when its life was in suspense. His rea- 
soning was, a college that has been so signally favored in 
the providence of God, as the spring of influences so 
sacred, is not to be given up of God. Whether this was 
a warranted conclusion or not, the event has verified it in 
a most triumphant manner. Led to this conclusion by 
such reasons, he assumed the charge of the college, 
when its only chance of life stood in the reputation of its 
President. 

From that time, it ceased to be a question with the 
students, whether the college was to live. Before his 
acceptance of the office, they had felt, in seeing their 
numbers so diminished, that the importance of their 
position there, as students, had proportionably dimin- 
ished ; that a diploma from so small a college would 
not be respected ; and that in after life they should 
blush to confess an origin from thence, and call such a 
shrivelled mother their Alma Mater. But as they saw 
that such a man as Dr. Griffin was willing to connect his 
own fame and destinies with ft, their fears on their own 
account subsided. Thus the high reputation which God 
had given to this good man, was used for purposes of 
immense good. 

His acceptance was announced in a very short time 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 45 



after the Commencement. It was a great event in the 
little community of Williamstown. Besides the inter- 
est felt in view of the public good connected with the 
college, about every individual in the town had a pri- 
vate interest to be promoted by an event, which, it 
was believed, was to revive and perpetuate the col- 
lege. Even the value of property in the place was to 
be seriously affected by it. Hence there was no little 
joyous excitement in the town, when the announcement 
was made. 

But this tide of public feeling was soon to be turned 
into another channel. Dr. Griffin had commenced to 
move his family to Williamstown. Having arrived in 
Troy, on his way, his eldest daughter was taken sick. 
He left her there with her mother, and proceeded to 
Williamstown with his other daughter. Be turning again 
to Troy, he found her in a dangerous condition, with the 
typhus fever. While he was waiting there, his other 
daughter, in Williamstown, was taken sick, first with the 
measles, and then with a bilious fever, which threatened 
her life. Having returned to Williamstown for the care 
of her, he soon received a summons to go back to Troy, 
to see his eldest child die. His experience on that occa- 
sion was recorded by himself, and was inserted in his Me- 
moir by Dr. Sprague. An extract or two will be of 
interest to be inserted here. 

" While reviewing all my feelings," he says, " about 
my poor child, at the time of her birth, and manner of 
praying for her and bringing her up, I said : And after 
all, is she to die in this state of insensibility ! Is this 



46 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



our covenant God ? Something seemed to say, No ; in 
a manner which soothed my anguish. # * I went 
into the room where my poor child lay. I found her 
insensible, deaf, dumb, and perhaps blind. By shaking 
her violently, I could make her open her eyes. I wished 
to pray with her without delay. I got the friends assem- 
bled in the room, and commended my dying child to 
God. When I opened my eyes, I found Mrs. Griffin 
bent down under her sorrows. I therefore lifted up my 
voice and said, What does it signify for God to reign, if 
he may not govern the world ? What does it signify for 
us to proclaim our joy that he governs, if we will not 
allow him to take from us our J osephs and our Benja- 
mins, as he pleases ? The words I saw went through the 
poor mother's heart ; and from that moment she lifted up 
her head. # * # In the course of the evening, Dr. 
B. told me that if she survived the next day, she would 
be liable to be taken off every half hour for three weeks. 
Well, then, I said to myself, it is vain to hope. I might 
as well hope, if she had to run the gauntlet between 
a hundred soldiers, with all their guns pointed at her. 
At this moment, it was powerfully impressed upon my 
mind, If it is the will of the Lord Jesus, that she shall die, 
Bhe will die ; and if it is his will that she shall live, she 
will live, though she were to run the gauntlet through 
the world. That thought composed me, and I slept 
quietly till the morning. But I was up with the day ; 
and instead of the chill of death coming upon her, she 
lifted up her eyes and knew me?" Speaking of his 
after experience he said: — " This great mercy never 



RECOLLECTIONS OP DR. GRIFFIN. 



47 



appeared to me so affecting, as since her hopeful conver- 
sion." 

While these painful events were in progress, the whole 
town was moved. Events and circumstances had brought 
all, both in the college and in the town, into such intimate 
sympathy with him and his, that all seemed but one fam- 
ily, in the share which they had in these afflictions of a 
stranger. All other matters of interest seemed to be for- 
gotten, in the eagerness for intelligence from the two 
centers of his afflictions. This period of suspense was 
long and trying to all concerned. It was full seven weeks 
from the time when his family were separated at Troy, 
before they could be united again in their new home. 

When his children were out of danger, and before their 
recovery was complete, his inauguration as President of 
the college took place. He, of course, was not in a state 
of mind, nor in circumstances, to produce a labored dis- 
course on that occasion. It was understood that he was 
only to make a few off hand remarks ; which he did, and 
which were of course well received. The aspect of the 
scene was a fit emblem of the previous condition of the 
college. It was one of those dark, chilly, rainy days, 
which the word November suggests ; when a handful of 
students, forty-eight all told, constituting the whole body 
then in Williams College, gathered, with a few of the 
people of the town, into what was then one of the largest 
and one of the most dreary of country meeting houses, for 
a ceremonial which requires quite different circumstantials 
to render it imposing. As an actor in this scene, Dr. 
Griffin formally assumed a charge in which he performed 



48 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



important service to the church, by preserving the life and 
restoring the strength and vigor of a college, which had 
before it such a destiny as this has since developed. 

After his short address had been delivered, the forms 
of his induction were passed through on the part of the 
trustees. The Professor of Languages then addressed the 
President, in Latin, welcoming him to his position, and 
the whole was closed by a prayer by the late Dr. Shepard, 
of Lenox, the sublime roll of whose utterance, after more 
than thirty years, has scarcely ceased its reverberations in 
our ears. 

Absence from the place occurring soon after, prevented 
our hearing the first sermons which Dr. Griffin preached. 
Custom then required the President of the college to 
preach one-third of the time, before both the students and 
the congregation of the town, who worshipped together. 
On the first Sabbath when we heard him preach, he de- 
livered the discourse, which stands as No. 5 in his printed 
sermons, On the Worth of the Soul. This sermon, 
Dr. Griffin probably preached more times than any other 
one. We subsequently saw the manuscript, bearing on 
it the record of having been preached, if our recollection 
serves us, about a hundred different times. And Dr. 
Griffin's sermons were not many times repeated, without 
being proportionally elaborated. He used to say, and he 
made the remark often to his class for practical effect, that 
he never read over his sermons without a pen in his hand, 
to make such alterations as occurred to him on the read- 
ing. And he gave his hearers proof of this, to the ear, 
in what would have offended the nerves of some, even less 



KECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 49 



delicate in their sensitiveness and general sense of pro- 
priety than himself. For one of his most common acts 
while sitting in the pulpit was, the rubbing of sand from 
his paper, so as to render legible the words recently inter- 
lined. But in case of his first preaching this sermon in 
Williamstown, he had no occasion for such an exercise ; 
as he had no manuscript before him, but spoke memoriter. 
The effect on our own mind was that of astonishment at 
the intellectual magnificence which he exhibited. Doubt- 
less the effect was owing in part to a predisposition to 
receive such an impression. Any one, however, who 
reads this discourse, without any knowledge of its author, 
must regard it as a masterly effort of mind. Yet few 
preachers have added more to the force of their written 
thoughts, by the manner of delivering them, than Dr. 
Griffin was wont to do. Hence he was more variable, in 
the effects which he produced at different times, than 
many others. We had in after years an opportunity to 
notice a striking example in his experience, showing how 
much depends on the manner and state of mind in the 
speaker, and how different may be the effect of the same 
words uttered in different circumstances. After our set- 
tlement in the ministry, Dr. Griffin spent a Sabbath with 
us, and by our request, he preached this sermon. We 
were now as much astonished as before, but in a different 
way. We looked over the congregation — a congrega- 
tion, by the way, not much given to sleeping under ser- 
mons — and we saw many actually asleep, and many 
others not far from it. Few were listening with any 



50 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



special interest. The whole aspect of the congrega- 
tion betrayed a consciousness that they were listening 
to a very dull discourse. Yet if one were but to read 
this sermon, without knowing anything of the writer, he 
might think it impossible for it to be read to a congrega- 
tion, much less delivered by its own author, without 
actually thrilling them. 

In allusion to the fact above stated, that one of his 
sermons had been preached a hundred times, one writer 
says : " When we hear of a distinguished preacher, 
repeating a favorite discourse a hundred times, we do not 
question the excellence of the sermon, but we do doubt 
the richness of his mind. It doth amaze us that men can 
so often tell over the same story, and not grow weary of 
hearing themselves." This is a very natural conclusion, 
if the writer was not aware of the peculiar habit of mind 
in the case. It came of his habit of concentrating all 
possible amount of strength on single sermons. His 
habit of re-casting the sermon in his mind, every time he 
preached it, and using his pen upon it in every possible 
way to make it better, made it to his mind, essentially 
a new sermon. This work, while in Willianistown, he 
was wont to begin early Saturday afternoon, when he pre- 
pared his old sermons for preaching on the Sabbath. He 
owed not a little of the superior force of his sermons, to 
these repeated revisions of them. Every new instance of 
preaching the sermon, occasioned a new touch of the 
chisel to a work of art, that was intended for immortality. 
Laboring on that principle with his sermons, he was in no 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 51 



danger of wearing them out. As to the richness of his 
mind, that depends on what is meant by the term. If by 
it is meant fertility in original invention, that appears on 
every page ; if it be meant that he was richly stored with 
other men's ideas, which would soon wear out by repeti- 
tion, in this he did not excel. 



CHAPTEK IV. 



HIS ADMINISTRATION IN THE PRESIDENCY, AND HABITS OF INSTRUC- 
TION, ETC. 

When Dr. Griffin commenced Ms labors in Wil- 
liams College, there were but two professors besides 
himself, and two tutors. He took the sole charge of 
the Senior Class, besides the labor of preaching one- 
third of the time before the college and the town congre- 
gation, worshipping together. In addition to this he 
usually conducted the daily evening service in the college 
chapel. 

It was in the chapel that the students first began to 
realize the change of administration. It had been their 
custom, sitting as they did on seats with very low backs, 
to sit, many of them, in pairs, back to back, with one 
limb raised upon the seat and the weight of the body 
lying back upon that of the other. At this grotesque 
and unbecoming spectacle, presented in the college 
chapel, the doctor's delicate sense of propriety seemed 
to be shocked. He put an extinguisher on this custom 
with all possible speed ; though it had acquired with the 
students the force of a settled habit, and some did not 
yield till they had received line upon line and precept 
upon precept. He attacked this and kindred customs on 
double grounds, as they involved irreverence in acts of 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



53 



worship, and tended to form ungentlemanly manners. 
In carrying out reforms of this nature, he evinced a 
becoming zeal and determination. While he was preach- 
ing, he insisted that all the students should look him in 
the face. If he saw one, with his head down upon his 
arm, resting upon the front of the seat, a posture in 
which many a student in former days had been wont to 
take a refreshing nap, he would invariably stop in the 
midst of his sermon and call the student by name, and 
thus correct his posture. He was no less particular, 
touching the postures of the students in the recitation 
room, or when he received them in his own study. If he 
saw one thrown back in his chair, so as to cant it upon 
two legs, according to a custom abundantly prevalent 
among New Englanders, all exercises must be suspended 
for a wholesome lecture upon that custom. The student 
was reminded, not only of the offence against good man- 
ners, but of the cruelty of the practice. A picture was 
drawn of the distress liable to be inflicted by the habit, if 
indulged, on many ladies, who would sit in agony through 
fear that their chairs would be broken, or that the 
sharp ends of the chairs were cutting through their car- 
pets. In short, he seemed to feel that one important 
part of his mission, as an educator, was to form the man- 
ners of the students to those of gentlemen ; an under- 
taking the difficulty of which is equalled only by its 
importance. 

The circumstances of college life place the student 
under great temptations to neglect this part of his educa- 
tion ; and that, too, while the very end of his education 



54 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



looks to a position in society where inoffensive and culti- 
vated manners are of pre-eminent importance. College stu- 
dents are, for the time being, much separated from the 
humanizing influence of the family circle, from the refin- 
ing effect of female society ; and are inured to such habits 
of study and seclusion as prompt them to indulge in 
forms of relaxation which are neither gentle nor promo- 
tive of gentility. Their sports would not come under 
the name of Calisthenics, if the etymology of the term 
be at all regarded. He, therefore, who assumes the task 
of making polished gentlemen out of a body of college 
students, assumes a difficult work, and the risk of many 
failures. What multitudes of professional men live all 
their after life to regret that while in college they had so 
little heeded this branch of their education. Many a one 
has found his influence and power for good, materially 
abridged from this single cause. In some instances the 
first of scholars, on this very account, have proved the 
weakest of men. No attainments in languages, mathe- 
matics, or metajmysics, can supply the want of this prac- 
tical knowledge ; this lack of common sense applied to 
the common intercourse of life. Nor will this quality 
often be secured by one, who in all his student life unites 
the student with the clown. Could all students, who 
have passed through college under the idea that their suc- 
cess in study would make amends for whatever uncouth 
and vulgar habits they might form, come back at the end 
of life and record upon the college walls the amount of 
embarrassment and loss which this . one error has cost 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 55 



them, the students who are now in their curriculum 
would not want impressive admonitions. 

But we have digressed from our account of Dr. Griffin. 
He was so formed by nature, that he could not be other- 
wise than sensitive to all departures from propriety of 
conduct on the part of the students in small things as 
well as in great. This sensitiveness was doubtless some- 
times aggravated by disease ; for he was, even when he 
commenced his labors in the college, constantly a sufferer 
from the gout. And probably the complaint of the heart, 
of which he died, was then, though he knew it not, 
exerting its influence to increase the sensitiveness 
of his nervous system. But whatever may have been 
the cause, he was not a little annoyed with what others 
would regard as trifles. K specimen now occurs. In 
making a call upon him, after we were settled in the min- 
istry, he took us out into his garden, where we were 
seated in conversation together at the end of a gravelled 
walk. Not having been long enough under his training 
to have been divested of all Yankee vulgarities, we had 
in hand a small switch, about the size of a goose quill, 
and were with a penknife cutting from the end of it shav- 
ings about the size of the wing of a fly which fell upon 
his gravelled walk. The Doctor suddenly broke the 
thread of the conversation, and with evident impatience 
said, " 0, don't do that ! " 

He was equally particular and sensitive about all his 
minute arrangements and habits, and equally impatient of 
the least disarrangement of them. His penknife must be 
in just such a place on his desk ; and it must continue 



56 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



open ; no one must be allowed to shut it. When some 
one casually sitting by, and not knowing his habit, has 
handled the knife and unconsciously left it shut, he has 
been known afterwards to raise a great and earnest inquiry 
through the house, to find out who had shut his knife. 
This, so far as it was a weakness, was doubtless the result 
of a diseased nervous irritability. But it stood connected 
with constitutional qualities, which made his love of order 
and system exceedingly exact. Nature had so constituted 
him, that he could not have the charge of the education 
of young men, without being painfully affected with their 
departures front the rules of good breeding. He invari- 
ably addressed the students as " Young Gentlemen" 
with an evident feeling, that calling them gentlemen was 
one step towards making them so. In his own carriage 
before them, he had somewhat too much of manner to 
consist with the most perfect ease of manners. He could 
not be imitated as a model, without imparting a stiffness 
and precision which would be anything but pleasing. 
Every word, gesture and motion, was according to the 
conventionalities of good society ; and all was given forth 
so slowly and deliberately, that every one of its linea- 
ments could be seen. But as it came from a figure 
so large, and requiring such a compass for its move- 
ments, it had the appearance of being overdone. We 
were prompted to desire that he would take less pains to 
be civil. 

We sometimes thought that this effect was increased by 
the want of flexibility in his frame, occasioned by the 
disease referred to. Always when walking in the street, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 57 



his majestic tread, dignified in itself, was marred by an 
evident care to favor the tenderness of his feet. But in 
his acts of civility, his words too, as well as the carriage 
and motions of his frame, showed a little overdoing, or 
too studied a conformity to rule. There was probably a 
tendency to this in the very structure of his mind. It 
seemed that whatever he attempted to do or say, he took 
the time and the pains to do or say it exactly secundum 
artem. We have been struck with this, in adverting to 
his manner of invoking a blessing at his meals. Though 
done in three sentences, it would be uttered with as much 
care of emphasis, inflection and expression, attached to 
every word, as if he were speaking to meet the ear of a 
critic. This was certainly not without utility ; for we 
have seen him in this way, make brief services very 
impressive. Probably he owed much of his success in 
eloquence to his habitual care of little things connected 
with it. 

We have mentioned some instances of the preciseness 
of Dr. Griffin, as to little things ; and have spoken of 
his being greatly annoyed when things, even of trifling 
consequence, were deranged or put out of place. He 
was distressingly precise on the subject of punctuation. 
It was to a revulsion of feeling, created perhaps by his 
very precise notions on this subject, and by his treatment 
of it, that our own carelessness of these matters may be 
attributed ; (coinciding, almost, with the practice of the 
ridiculously notorious* Dexter, who caused his book to be 
printed without a comma or a period, and then placed a 
large supply of the raw material for punctuation at the 
4 



58 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



end, that every reader might suit himself,) a carelessness 
which, if the printer and proof reader did not come after 
us, to supply our lack of service, would lead our readers 
to think that our elementary education had been strangely 
neglected. But the fault of punctuation, in view of which 
Dr. Griffin was wont to be most scandalized, was a fault 
by excess, such as the insertion of commas between the 
minuter members of a sentence. This, he said, tended 
to obscure the sense. So much importance did he attach 
to this comparative trifle, that he undertook the labor, 
with the text books which he used for his class, of going 
over every sentence with his penknife, and erasing every 
superfluous comma ; which, according to his rule, amounted 
to more than half of the whole. 

In order to a true picture of the man, some of these 
minute particulars are required to be noticed. For 
intimately connected with some few defects or foibles of 
this kind, were the springs of his greatness. He did 
not attach an undue importance to the formation of 
the manners of the students, nor did he err in his par- 
ticular pains to call them young gentlemen, while he was 
laboring to make them so. These, however, were new 
customs in those days ; and some of his efforts pro- 
voked, now merriment, and now vexation, among the 
students. 

We have alluded to the state of Dr. Griffin's health. 
He was compelled to use the utmost care to keep his 
physical frame in a working condition, and to avoid the 
intense suffering incident to his disease. He had need to 
wear boots immensely large for his feet, which were none 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 59 



of the smallest themselves ; and lest these should be pen- 
etrated by any dampness from the ground, even in the 
best of walking, these boots must be covered by a huge 
pair of overshoes. With this incumbrance, he must walk 
the distance of four miles every day, if he had no other 
exercise. If stormy weather prevented his getting exer- 
cise abroad, he was wont to walk the length of his house 
in the attic, and to count off turns enough to make his 
number of miles. He did not, however, depend entirely 
on walking. He kept a horse, whose frame and size 
were nearly proportioned to his own ; and for a part of 
the time he was wont to take his exercise on horseback. 
His figure then was worth contemplating. His stature 
was six feet and three inches in height, and when he was 
fullest in flesh he weighed two hundred and sixty pounds. 
A man of these dimensions, when well mounted on horse- 
back, was no insignificant person to look at. Such was 
his habit and state of health that if he intermitted his 
exercise a single day he suffered for it. It was needful 
therefore, that it should be kept up on the Sabbath, as 
well as on other days. This, in his case, was plainly a 
matter of necessity and mercy. Yet where this necessity 
was not understood, his riding out on the Sabbath, some- 
times left an unjust impression. A case occurred, in 
which, when riding on the Sabbath, he saw a negro man 
in a field hoeing corn. He felt bound to reprove the 
man for his violation of the Sabbath. The negro replied, 
that he was doing no worse than to ride out on the Sab- 
bath. Dr. Grifhn said that his riding was necessary for 
his health. The negro replied, that hoeing corn was 



60 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



needful for his health. Thus it was, that his infirmity, 
which made it needful for him to seem to be breaking the 
Sabbath, would incapacitate him to reprove with effect a 
stranger who was actually doing it, and who knew not 
the necessities of his case. 

As a disciplinarian, Dr. Griffin did not excel. The 
greatness of his mind did not consist in that keen sagac- 
ity which would give him a superiority in dealing with 
crooked and refractory students. If the number of 
students had been large, and if the government of them 
had rested solely with him, it is easy to see that he would 
have found insuperable difficulties; as it was, the de- 
ficiency was unfelt. The structure of his own mind was in 
remarkable simplicity, and his own experience had fur- 
nished him little advantage in tracking out the intricacies 
and sinuosities of other minds. 

But as a teacher, Dr. Griffin had rare qualifications. 
His habit of clearly analysing and presenting in distinct 
parts, with their mutual relations, whatever subject came 
under notice was pre-eminent. Connected with this, he 
had a faculty of painting his thoughts so vividly, that 
they could not fail to strike the apprehension of the pupil ; 
and by a sort of intuition, he seemed to seize upon the 
student's habits of thought, and to discern just how to 
reach them. If the student had any capacity, he was 
sure to draw it forth by a skilful adjustment of his 
inquiries and illustrations. In many instances he could 
set the thinking machinery in motion where it had rested 
long before. Hence the exercises of the recitation room 
under his auspices were never dull. Very few of the 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 61 



class found them a task, or a mere matter of business. 
There was in them all that is attractive in amusement, a 
most agreeable quickening of thought. In all this, noth- 
ing of levity appeared. Once in a while, there was a 
playful turn of thought in an illustration, where the 
pleasantry served to fix and illumine the picture. With 
this, however, the utmost decorum and gravity were pre- 
served ; and whatever the subject of study and recitation 
might he, it was easy for him to find occasions *f or casual 
remarks which were adapted to moral and spiritual im- 
pressions. Without the appearance of anything like 
preaching, or even of stepping out of the line of thought 
marked out in our text books of science, he would, in the 
week's instruction, have brought before the class no small 
amount of suggestions, ministering to religious thought 
and duty. '« The working of his mind on these occasions 
evinced beyond a question, his ever watchful solicitude 
for the spiritual interests of his pupils. As a specimen 
of the casual religious remarks interspersed, by an easy 
slide this once fell out. " From my soul, I pity the man 
who has entered the ministry as a mere profession ; and 
who bears its anxieties, toils and responsibilities, without 
any proper love for the work." Nothing could be more 
fitting than this, made to a class of young men, about 
half of whom, being professors of religion, were supposed 
to be contemplating the clerical profession, but few of 
whom actually entered it. Innumerable have been the 
occasions, during our own experience in the ministry, 
when the force of this casual remark has been renewed 
upon our feelings. 



62 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



But Dr. Griffin especially excelled as a rhetorical 
teacher. The exercises of the class in criticising each 
others' compositions under his guidance, were the most 
interesting and profitable of any. He required each 
student to take notes, while one was reading his essay, 
and then each in turn was called upon for his criticisms. 
Then he would criticise both the essayist and the critic. 
By such an exercise he would impress on the minds of 
the students, the leading principles of rhetoric, so that 
they could be easily apprehended, and not easily forgot- 
ten. Nothing was more remarkable, than the exhaust- 
less patience with which he inculcated a single rule, till 
he saw it well fixed in the practice. For instance, one of 
the most common errors of young writers is that perpe- 
trated in the form of mixed metaphors. Whenever one of 
these occurred in a composition, he would stop the reader 
and say, " Paint it ! " that is, complete the image pre- 
sented in the metaphor, and see if all its parts corres- 
pond with each other. To use one of Blair's examples 
quoted from Shakspeare — " Take up arms against a 
sea of troubles;" he would have them picture in the 
mind, the sea, and then the aimed host, that they might 
perceive that the two were incongruous, and therefore 
that the metaphor was not fit. After he had made his 
meaning well understood, he was wont to correct the 
recurrence of this fault, at a single stroke, by the single 
expression, " Paint it! " So of every other common fault 
in composition ; he had it as distinctly labelled, and 
could as quickly correct it and pass on. His mode of 
taking the wind out of the sails of a turgid writer, was 
exceedingly happy. The student would read off with 



RECOLLECTIONS OE DR. GRIFFIN. 



63 



great confidence, a long, and what he conceived to be a 
splendid sentence, full of high sounding words and pom- 
pous imagery. The Doctor would say, " Stop, let us 
see." He would then take the evident sense of the sen- 
tence, if it had any, and put it in five simple words, and 
say, "You mean so, do you not?" "Yes, sir." 
64 Tlien say so." The student would perhaps stare, and 
find out with difficulty at last, that he meant that he 
should write down those five words, in place of his great 
sentence, made with learned length and thundering 
sound. He would then, for a while, be stumbled at the 
discovery, that those few simple terms, embracing all the 
sense which he had to convey, were better than his many 
portly words employed before. Here, before he thought 
of it, a new principle of writing had gained possession of 
his mind ; viz : That the true force of writing consists in 
the maximum of sense and the minimum of words ; and 
not, as young writers usually have it, in the maximum of 
words with the minimum of sense. If the student was 
reluctant to suffer such a collapse, through loss of words 
and wind, the Doctor would follow him through his 
composition, making the like change on every sentence 
jthat needed it, and then direct him to copy it off, and 
see how much better it would read. Though the 
reduction in bulk would be striking, and the labor of 
copying small, most were compelled to confess the im- 
provement. 

Indeed, his main labor, as a rhetorical teacher, was in 
a war against words — an effort to drill the student into 
the condensation of his forms of expression. His theory 



64 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



was, that force in the utterance of a thought was in 
inverse proportion to the number of words and syllables 
required. And therefore, that the short Saxon words, 
the monosyllables if we have them, are better than the 
longer words of Latin derivation. It was a position of 
his, that the hearer's or reader's thought travels faster 
than our language can travel ; and if the expression lags 
behind, by reason of the lumber of the words, the mind 
of the hearer becomes tired of waiting for it, and an im- 
pression of fatigue or dulness is produced. Herein, he 
said, he accounted for the fact, that among preachers 
there were many of extensive scholarship, sound sense, 
and ardent piety, who, in their sermons, were incurably 
dull. The hearer might listen, and see that there are 
important thoughts and new and striking views of truth 
in the sermon. But in spite of this, his attention flags, 
and can be sustained only with an effort. If .you atten- 
tively examine the structure of this class of sermons, it 
will be seen, that the thought is smothered in the words. 
There is an amount of verbiage, winch so much taxes the 
patience of the hearer, in the effort of picking out the 
thought from the redundant words, that the interest in 
hearing is destroyed. 

Having this view of style, he laid a heavy hand on all 
redundances, till the student was astonished to find how 
many of his customary words could be spared, and what 
a new force and quickening his discourse had acquired by 
the loss of them. This idea could not be received and 
comprehended by the student until the Doctor sat down 
with him and went over every sentence, striking out 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



65 



every useless word and showing him how much the force 
of thought was improved by taking it away ; thus demon- 
strating that words with writers are but necessary evils. 
While doing this, the thought expressed in every para- 
graph was, of course, thoroughly scanned ; and if there 
was no thought in it, which often happened, the student 
was enabled to see it. A very common matter of sur- 
prise with students was, to find how little of sense was 
left in their labored essays after the redundant words 
were cut away. The purposes of humiliation were very 
effectually answered by such critical exercises. In the 
desk in his study, Dr. Griffin had a leaf which was drawn 
out at the end, for the convenience of the student, to sit 
before him, and use the pen in making the required cor- 
rections. This, when he invited the student to take his 
place at it, he was wont to call his " dissecting block." 
On one occasion, in his theological class, when a student 
read a dissertation on some theological question, in which 
there was little else besides a swell of words, the 
Doctor sat in silence till he Jbad finished. A pause 
ensued. The Doctor looked up and said, " Have you 
done? " " Yes, sir." " Why, you have not begun to 
begin!" 

In order to enforce the advantages of condensation in 
style, he said that most of his own sermons which he con- 
sidered the most effective, were made one from two. In 
his first place of settlement in the ministry, he often 
wrote double sermons, preaching both parts of the day on 
one text, and that after his removal to another field of 
labor he had taken those sermons, preserving all the 



66 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



important thoughts and throwing away useless words, and 
made one out of two ; and that these were his best ser- 
mons. He advised us, therefore, when we wished to lay 
out our strength and do our best upon any production, to 
write out a first draft of our thoughts, awaking all the 
zeal and energy of composition possible, and collecting all 
the most pertinent thoughts, so as to get our materials all 
before us ; and then to re-write the whole, reducing 
every idea to its proper place and order, and conveying 
the whole in the fewest possible words. He recommended 
frequent revisions of what we had written, for the single 
purpose of erasing useless words. 

To illustrate his idea of the greater force of the briefer 
forms of speech, he was wont to seize on some of the 
stereotyped forms of expression, used in public prayer. 
Instead of the expression, " The earth shall be full of the 
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea ; " it 
is not uncommon to hear, " as the waters cover the chan- 
nels of the great deep." And yet, how much more forci- 
ble is that little word," sea, than those great swelling 
words, the channels of the great deep. He also ex- 
pressed a decided aversion, though for different reasons, 
to another common expression used in prayer, ' ' Now in 
the divine presence,'' for " Now in thy presence." He 
objected to the use of the term, " sacred desk." When 
a student used it, he stopped him, and quoted those lines 
of Cowper : 

" The pulpit, — and I name it filled with zeal 
And solemn awe, which bids me well beware 
With what intent I touch that holy thing." 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 67 



He felt that the term pulpit had in it more of dignity 
and was* more exactly expressive of the thing, than desk. 
When two expressions occurred, between which a choice 
could not be made on other grounds, he would say, " Try 
them by the ear." In this he did not make the question 
turn on the mere music of the expression ; but on rea- 
sons too subtle to be described in terms, and yet capable 
of being detected and appreciated by the ear. 



CHAPTER V. 



HIS TRAITS AS A TEACHER OF MINISTERS. 

We have spoken of some of Dr. Griffin's qualities and 
modes of teaching. He excelled in nothing more than in 
ihe skill and tact which he applied in teaching the art of 
sermonizing. As a model for other preachers, his own 
preaching was capable of being made in the highest de- 
gree instructive, and it was capable also of a most palpable 
abuse. If a young preacher were to hear him, with a 
careful notice of his own consciousness under the hearing, 
and a critical attention to the sources of the preacher's 
power, he could not fail of receiving profit. For his 
style of preaching was so peculiar, and so suggestive, as 
to furnish a very useful subject of study. But woe to 
the stripling that should venture to put on, and actually 
to wear Saul's armor. Dr. Griffin was one of the most 
dangerous of all preachers to imitate, for the very reason 
that he led his followers so far out of the beaten track. 
A notable experiment of this kind was once made by one 
of his students. The Doctor would, sometimes, when he 
had carried up his sermon, at its close, to the highest 
point of impassioned eloquence, give it a most felicitous 
and striking conclusion in the words, "Halleluiah! 
Halleluiah ! Amen." This young man undertook the 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 69 



same thing, before the very congregation whom Dr. Griffin 
had more than once thrilled in this manner. In his attempt, 
he so completely broke down, and the failure was so ludi- 
crous, that it was with difficulty that the congregation 
could restrain themselves from outbreaking laughter. 
Any one undertaking to copy from Dr. Griffin those pecu- 
liarities which were so striking and impressive in him, 
just took the step from the sublime to the ridiculous. 

There was no department of labor for which Dr. Grif- 
fin had such a passion, as for that of teaching Sacred 
Rhetoric. This was probably what induced him to make 
the experiment of teaching a class of theological students, 
in connection with his labors in college. And his skill 
in the criticism of sermons, was at one time so much val- 
ued, that many cotemporary ministers sought the privilege 
of occupying his dissecting block. 

In the year 1825, which was one of the years in ■ which 
he had the care of his theological class, he had an appoint- 
ment to preach the Annual Sermon before the Pastoral 
Association of Massachusetts ; and be devoted the burden 
of his discourse to giving rules for preaching and the com- 
position of sermons. He remarked while preparing this 
sermon, that his main purpose would be, to correct the 
prevalent artificial style of preaching, and to inculcate 
greater simplicity. But said he, it will be very difficult 
to preach on such a subject, and give rules for others' 
preaching, and at the same time preach against a confine- 
ment to rules, without violating my own rules in the act 
of giving them. And it was a little curious, that after- 
wards, as we have heard, a remark was made by Prof. 



70 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

Henry Ware, Jr., who was one of his hearers. on this 
occasion, to the effect that his rules were good, but that 
they were strikingly violated in his own preaching ; that 
while he inculcated a manner unconfined by rules, his 
whole utterance and manner showed the tyranny of rules 
over him. 

One source of Dr. Griffin's power in preaching evi- 
dently was in the power of his passions. Few men have 
equalled him in the strength of his emotional nature. 
The outflow of his eloquence was sometimes like an un- 
capped volcano. This was because the fountain of his 
feelings within was itself a volcano. He once disclosed a 
leading principle in his theory of pulpit eloquence, in a 
striking remark to a young preacher, who, under the 
auspices of Mr. Finney, was much inclined to the new 
measures, which the Doctor, by the way, deeply disap- 
proved. The young man had observed, that in the preach- 
ing of Mr. Finney, there was nothing to move the passions j 
that it was all calm and sober reasoning. To this Dr. G. 
replied, that he had no objection to proper appeals to the 
passions. Let the understanding be first approached 
with divine truth, and then go in among the passions 
with all the power of that truth. 

He touched on this point in the sermon above alluded 
to. He taught, that the end of all preaching is to bring 
divine truth into contact with the consciousness and 
sensibilities of the soul. Divine truth must be made to 
speak to the whole man. He says, " I never saw the 
worth of the soul, as when I had a child lying at the 
point of death — the truth in this instance opening to my 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 71 



understanding, through the medium of parental affection. 
There is no holiness in mere speculation ; all holiness pri- 
marily, consists in passion. Love, the fulfilling of the 
law, is passion. Without passions, we could not be per- 
suaded to act at all. There is no book which addresses 
so strongly the imagination and passions as the Bible. 
But passion should not, instead of being the handmaid, 
become the mistress of the house. As long as reason 
governs, there is no limit to the passion allowable. There 
is nothing to blame in the fervors of the ' rapt seraph 
that adores and burns.' Still, there is a counterfeit. 
Men" may be carried away by religious frenzy, who have 
little religion. One truth disproportionately dwelt on, 
may destroy the balance of the mind. A part of the 
rays of the sun separated from the rest, will stain your 
page red, or orange, or violet ; but if the full light of 
heaven falls upon it, it will leave a pure white. All 
truths seen in proper combinations, though they may ele- 
vate and astonish, will produce no frenzy. There was no 
frenzy in the ' unenthusiastic Jesus,' with all the amazing 
truths of heaven beaming on his soul. There is no frenzy 
in the eternal mind." 

An oft repeated remark of his about sermon writing 
was, that when we undertake to give the sense of a 
passage of Scripture in a sermon, it is best to give the 
very language of the sacred writer, because the lan- 
guage of the Bible is more eloquent than ours. We 
recollect, on one occasion, while reading a sermon, under 
his criticism, that in referring to the songs of the angels 
announcing the birth of Christ, we undertook to abbre- 



72 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



viate, and give the sense of the song in our own words. 
He interrupted the reading with the remark : ' ' The 
angels can sing better than you ; take the very words of 
their song." 

As to the use of figurative language, Dr. Griffin re- 
garded it as the appropriate language of passion, and as 
suitable, for the same reason that it is fitting that the 
passions should be roused. If we insist on making our 
religion one of mere notions, and our hearers mere intel- 
lectual icebergs, there are other sects that will find out 
that men have feelings, and will bear down all before 
them. If we take this ground, our churches will sink 
into a notional religion, or go off to other denominations 
who know how to address the whole man. 

One of his most common remarks in all rhetorical ex- 
ercises with his students was : Never go out of your way 
to select a flower ; but, if it comes in your path, be not 
afraid to take it up. So, he said, a figurative style, un- 
dictated by passion, and got up by labor, is frigid and 
disgusting. Like the sky in a wintry night, it may 
sparkle, but it freezes. 

In forming a style for preaching, he recommended that 
we should take the Holy Ghost for a teacher, — especially 
by entering into that feeling and mode of preaching, 
which prevails in revivals of religion. He said it was a 
good rule to make the generality of our sermons such as 
would best affect an audience in a revival. If our ser- 
mons were to be cut down to this rule, how many of them 
would have much left. 

He thus characterises a kind of preaching which L 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 73 

too common at the present day: "I mean that which 
in view of the fashionable world, entitles the preacher 
to the highest rank among pulpit orators ; that which is 
fall of warm and eloquent declamation, or fanciful 
descriptions, or tasteful addresses, or beautiful pictures ; 
which takes divine truth for its text, and its heads, but 
instantly leaves it, and runs out among human relations 
and events, for its sparkling, or its splendid illustrations. 
If it ever awakens the passions, (as it sometimes power- 
fully does,) it is the natural passions only. It delights 
worldly men, because it pleases their fancy without 
paining their conscience ; and it may surround the 
preacher with glory, but it will never do any good. God 
Almighty preserve our churches from such preachers as 
these!" 

He was a great lover of our good old Saxon words, in 
preference to those of Latin origin, and had a great aver- 
sion to a style artificially wrought out of Latin materials 
into Johnsonian periods. Speaking of this on one occa- 
sion, he said : " They call it Johnsonian ; but it is not 
even of the masculine gender." He said : ' 4 some giant 
of a Johnson, with all the cumbrance of an artificial * 
structure, has protruded his un wieldly form through the 
world, and, Sampson-like, has poised the pillars of the 
house notwithstanding his fetters of brass ; and his humble 
imitators, without his might, are trying what they can do 
with both hands bound. They are placing perfection in 
sonorous words, in stateliness of movement, in an anti- 
thetical balance of clauses, and are running from nature 
as fast as they can. 

5 



74 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



' I seek divine simplicity, in Him 
Who handles thought divine.' 

It may be relied on, as an everlasting maxim, that the elo- 
quence best fitted to thrill the heart of a philosopher is 
that .which melts a child." 

Dr. Griffin's sermon preached before the Pastoral Asso- 
ciation, from which the above extracts are taken, may be 
regarded as a happy condensation of the rules which he 
was wont to bring into constant use in teaching sacred 
rhetoric. Dr. Sprague says of that sermon, that it " is 
perhaps the very best thing extant, on that subject ; and it 
would be difficult to find a man who combined, in a 
higher degree than Dr. Griffin himself, the qualities which 
he has there so admirably described as essential to per- 
fection in preaching." 



CHAPTER VI. 



HIS HABITS AS A PREACHER. 

To describe Dr. Griffin as a preacher, and do him full 
justice, would be an undertaking from which we should 
shrink. He would, in this respect, form a grand subject 
for a competent painter. His every feature was promi- 
nent and unique. His true portraiture would never be 
mistaken for that of another. His majestic form in the 
pulpit, with mingled intelligence and affection beaming 
in his countenance, was itself an impressive sermon. 
When a public speaker exhibits an intellect commanding 
enough to justify and fill out the dimensions of a large 
bodily frame, such a frame gives him a material advan- 
tage in giving impression to his words and thoughts. 
There was something in Dr. Griffin's very presence, in 
the pulpit, that at once arrested attention and expecta- 
tion ; and the first opening of his lips furnished some- 
thing, in voice or in the expression of thought, that fixed 
and retained the interest already awakened. He had no 
common places of matter or manner, not even to fill up 
intervals. Every word in the devotional exercises, and 
every tone in which it was uttered, showed that it con- 
veyed a present thought or feeling. All was spoken with 
such deliberation, that each syllable had time to tell its 
meaning, and report the state of the heart that gave it 



76 



RECOLLECTIONS OF BR. GRIFFIN. 



utterance. His reading of the Scriptures seemed to 
evolve a meaning and richness unthought of before. In 
the reading of hymns he would give more force of ex- 
pression, and often more impressiveness to the sentiment 
of the hymn, than could be given by the singing of a 
good choir. Indeed, the great masters of sacred music 
are not more careful to bring the force of their art to bear 
upon each note, than was Dr. Griffin to bring the 
resources of eloquence to bear upon every syllable of the 
hymn when read. He read slowly, and gave himself 
time to throw the right and full expression and inflection 
on each word. He threw his whole soul into the reading, 
as much as if the lines were a fresh and original utter- 
ance of his own feeling. It has been often said that, by 
the simple reading of the hymn beginning, 

" Mighty God, while angels bless thee, 
May an infant lisp thy name ! " 

he would produce as much impression upon an audience 
as would ordinarily be produced by an eloquent sermon. 
We doubt if any of the public readers of Shakspeare, or 
any of the most accomplished actors, could read sacred 
poetry, or passages from the Bible, with a truth and force 
at all approaching to the manner of Dr. Griffin. 

He was aided, in his effective reading of the psalms 
and hymns of the sanctuary, by a passionate love of that 
kind of sacred poetry. His mind was wont so to kindle 
upon it, that it was easy for him to throw his whole soul 
into the reading. He was evidently not an extensive 



EECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



77 



reader of the poets ; but Watts, above all, and Cowper, 
second to Watts, were his favorites. He was accustomed 
to say, that the anticipation of heaven was more delightful 
to him in the thought that he should there be joined with 
Watts, in singing the glories of the Lamb. In a con- 
versation about Watts, when the idea of his being 
claimed by the Unitarians was adverted to, he remarked 
that in his old age Watts had indulged in some spec- 
ulations about the indwelling scheme that were unsound, 
and which, if carried out, would involve the Unita- 
rian error ; but that it was wrong to attribute to a writer 
consequences of his speculations which he himself denied, 
— that Watts himself never uttered a doubt of the Trin- 
ity, or the proper deity of Christ ; and that, if he could 
have foreseen the inferences which had been attempted to 
be drawn from his speculations, he would have wept tears 
of blood. 

To revert to his reading of sacred poetry, we may add 
that Dr. Griffin attached great importance to the good 
reading of hymns in the pulpit. He said that if this 
were done as it should be, as much good impression 
might be produced by it as by the performance of the 
choir ; and that such a reading of the hymn would 
greatly assist the choir to give the true expression. He 
took special pains, therefore, in exercising his students 
in theology in this practice. The psalms which he 
usually selected for the purpose of these exercises, were 
those beginning : 

u Sweet is the work, my God, my King," 

and — 

61 Lord, I am thine, but thou wilt prove," 



78 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



The exercises would Involve a complete analysis of the 
psalm, showing how each phrase and word should be 
uttered , and how the sense of each line should be given. 
The student was first put to the reading, and his failures 
were pointed out. Then the Doctor would strike the 
notes himself, and require the student to imitate them ; 
and while a whole hour would often be spent in this way 
upon a single hymn, there was no lack of interest on the 
part of his class, in the exercise. 

On his own power in the public reading of hymns we 
once witnessed an example not easy for us to forget, 
There was a funeral exercise in the college, at the 
burial of one of the students. The college choir wanted 
an original hymn to sing on the occasion. Poets did not 
at that time abound among the students, and for the lack 
of something better, they accepted some lines of our 
inditing, which, of course, were nothing more than the 
merest common places set in rhyme and measured feet. 
We had no thought that the stanzas would be read in pub- 
lic, and supposed that the singing would cover the jejune- 
ness of the lines. 

But after Dr. Griffin entered the pulpit, he called for 
the lines to read. And he so read into them a sense 
which we, in the writing, had not conceived, that we 
could hardly realize that the piece read was the same 
thing that we had written. We were perfectly astonished, 
and were truly in the condition of that litigant at law, 
who, when his advocate was setting forth in court, with a 
vivid power of exaggeration, the injuries which his client 
had received, remarked, that * 1 he did know before that 
he been so much abused." - 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 79 



Dr. Griffin's voice had a remarkable compass and flex- 
ibility, and all its various appliances of power and adapta- 
tion were on occasion brought into use. In the utterance 
of some tender thought or emotion, it would be so gentle 
and subdued, that it would seem that the spirit only 
spoke, without the voice ; and anon it would come forth 
as a tempest, and break upon the ear as thunder. He 
had no qualms of conscience about reading sermons, and 
recommended this method, in preference to memoriter 
preaching, on the ground that it was difficult to give a 
natural utterance to what had been committed to memory. 
Yet he insisted that great pains should be taken that the 
reading should be natural ; that it should be speaking 
rather than reading. 

In this respect he was exemplary. When he preached 
his old sermons, he said that he felt a necessity for em- 
ploying Saturday afternoon and evening, in a review of 
his subject, in order to get his mind anew into it, and 
warmed up with it. If all preachers were in the habit 
of laboring as much in preparation for the delivery of 
their old sermons, perhaps their age" would be a less fre- 
quent objection to them. His care about the delivery of 
his sermons made him very particular as to his pulpit 
accommodations. When the opportunity allowed, he 
preferred to examine the pulpit in which he was to 
preach when abroad. Stands and desks made for min- 
isters of common stature, would often be very incon- 
venient for him. Sometimes he would find it needful to 
take the cushion from the seat, and by it to elevate the 
pulpit cushion another story. He said that he once 



80 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



preached in New York, where there were no means 
of elevating the pulpit to meet his necessities ; and 
haying tried in vain to read from his manuscript placed 
so near to his feet, he finally said to himself, the sin be 
upon the heads of the pulpit makers, and took up his 
manuscript and held it square before his face, and read 
from it to the congregation. 

But it was not simply in the pulnit that he needed 
equipments peculiar to himself. When he visited his 
friends abroad, his lodging accommodations not unfre- 
quentiy needed much previous examination and altera- 
tion. Usually the bedstead required the addition of a 
codicil, to give it sufficient length for his giant frame ; 
and when this was impossible, he had need to give him- 
self a diagonal position upon it. It was doubtless owing 
to this necessity for previous inquiry as to his sleeping 
accommodations, while visiting his friends, together with 
his remarkable particularity about all the minutia of his 
arrangements for health and comfort, that his visits were 
so often rendered memorable, especially to the domestics 
of the families where he was entertained. But though 
the pleasure of his visits, on this account, was somewhat 
labored, his visits were always in a high degree welcome. 
Aside from his remarkable social qualities, and the intrin- 
sic interest of his conversation, there was something so 
striking and peculiar in all his ways, that it kept the 
mind awake. Even the domestics of the house regretted 
his departure ; for their extra pains had been accom- 
panied with a pleasant excitement. In one case, while 
favoring the writer with a visit, he had been overtaken in 



RECOLLECTIONS OE DR. GRIFFIN. 81 



a walk with a shower. The consequence was that he 
spent a good part of the evening by the kitchen fire, 
among other things directing the domestic how to hold his 
open umbrella, so as to dry and not burn it. After he 
had left us, she remarked that she was sorry that he had 
gone, for she felt " so lonesome" 

But we have digressed from our purpose. Much as 
we have said about the- command which Dr. Griffin had of 
the art of eloquence, we would not be understood that he 
was artificial in his manner. We have never seen, in a 
public speaker, greater simplicity. His art succeeded so 
entirely as to conceal all art. Pope's couplet was with 
him a favorite : 

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance ; 
As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 

The whole course of thought and expression in his 
sermons had the simplicity of a child. This is the more 
remarkable, when we consider that his mind had been 
given so much to metaphysical inquiry. He had rare 
powers of abstraction and analysis, and he might be 
called an eminent metaphysician. We never heard or 
read the productions of any one, who could set meta- 
physical trains of thoughts in so clear and intelligible a 
view. And yet his sermons are at the farthest possible 
removed from metaphysics, both in their style and their 
material. 

While he produced some sermons, which, for adapted- 
ness to the true end of preaching, have rarely been sur- 



82 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



passed, his ordinary discourses were very unequal. While 
there would be, even in his poorest sermons, here and 
there a master stroke, above the power of ordinary 
preachers, the sermon as a whole would not be above 
mediocrity. He probably fell below the level of his own 
best discourses oftener and farther than most good 
preachers do. He was accustomed to instruct his stu- 
dents that in the composition of a Sermon there could not 
be mountains without valleys between them, and that it is 
not best to attempt to give to the whole sermon the eleva- 
tion of the mountain. Whether he intended it or not, 
this rule had application to the general course of his ser- 
mons. He certainly had both mountains and valleys ; 
and a valley, sometimes, where he evidently thought 
there was a mountain. -Sometimes his sermon consisted 
of a train of thought quite out of the ordinary course, 
which apparently had greatly interested his own mind as 
new and important, but which was manifestly not appre- 
ciated by his hearers. 

When we first began to hear him, we were struck with 
a manifest difference between his preaching and what we 
had been in the habit of hearing, in that he exactly 
copied the style of the Scriptures in the use of such 
terms as " hell/' 11 damnation," and the like. He intro- 
duced the ideas, conveyed by these terms, no oftener 
than other preachers. But when he would express the 
ideas, be used no softening nor circumlocution of lan- 
guage, but the ipsissima verba of the Bible. It was so 
contrary to what we had been previously accustomed to, 
that at first it somewhat grated on the ear. But obser- 



EECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 83 



vation and reflection convinced us that Dr. Griffin was 
right ; that there was more effectiveness in those terms 
which the Holy Ghost has chosen than in any which our 
prudence or taste can substitute. And when the preach- 
er's mind reluctates from, and forbears the use of such 
terms, where the thought and full force of his argument 
require them to be used, he betrays a fear of man, or a 
fear of the truth ; either of which is injurious to the im- 
pression which he should make. Perhaps one source of 
the remarkable pungency of Dr. Griffin's preaching was 
just this boldness in using the very words that the Holy 
Ghost teacheth. Perhaps, too, this was one reason why 
his preaching in Boston awakened against him so much 
wrath ; caused a train of sulphur to be drawn from his 
door to the church, as a symbolic act of derision ; and 
gave to the corner of the street, where the house in 
which he preached was situated, the name of Brimstone 
Corner. Be this as it may, it would doubtless add vastly 
to the force of the preaching of the present day, if it 
would imitate his faithfulness in this particular. 

In his instructions to other preachers, Dr. Griffin ad- 
vised them to adhere closely to the use of these Bible 
terms. But he charged them especially to be careful to 
utter the words with mingled tenderness and awe ; and 
to avoid that kind of harshness in the manner of speak- 
ing those terrible words, which would suggest to the 
hearer that they delighted in the things intended by 
them. In his own use of the terms and names referred 
to, he would sometimes precede them by a pause, as if 
they^ were too terrible for utterance ; and then they would 



84 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



come from his lips with a solemnity and force which was 
thrilling to the hearer. It is worthy of notice that Bax- 
ter, whose power and success as a preacher was unri- 
valled, had just this freedom in the use of this class of 
terms. He never made a circuit to avoid them ; and 
their use is a part of the demonstration which his pages 
bear of his ministerial faithfulness. 

Dr. Griffin was a reader of sermons. In evening' 
meetings, especially in times of revival, he was accus- 
tomed to extemporize, and sometimes with great power. 
But we never heard him deliver but one sermon memori- 
ter ; and, except in that instance, we never heard him 
preach on the Sabbath without reading his sermons. 
Many tell us that " reading cannot be preaching." But 
how is this ? The radical idea of preaching, is that of 
the utterance of a crier in the streets. And yet the crier 
more often than otherwise, carries a handbill in his hand r 
from which he reads the very words which he cries, pro- 
claims, or preaches. If reading sermons cannot be 
preaching, then Dr. Griffin did not preach. And if he 
was not a preacher, pray tell us who is ? If preaching- 
be tested by the eloquence put forth, or by the results 
produced, what more effective preaching did his own age 
produce ? If Dr. Mason excelled in the memoriter 
method of preaching, did not Dr. Griffin as much excel 
in the reading method ? 

Reader though he was, he abounded in gesticulation, 
especially in the more animated and impassioned parts of 
his sermons. As his speech was slow, he had no diffi- 
culty in fitting the action to the word. But he constantly 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



85 



remonstrated against young men imitating his own gestic- 
ulation, or that of any one else. He insisted, that 
gestures should come of the mere impulse of nature, and 
never by rule ; that they are allowable only when the 
speaker's feelings prompt them ; that the arms should be 
kept still, except when the mind feels a necessity for 
some action, to enforce its present thought and feeling ; 
and then he insisted that motion should take its form 
from the feeling, and not from rules or practice at the 
glass. At the same time, he taught that there was need 
of care and study in reference to gesticulation, in order 
to correct the awkwardness which, in most instances, has 
supervened and laid trammels upon the freedom of 
nature. He held that the motions of an infant, being 
natural, are graceful • and that all the forms of awkward- 
ness, being departures from nature, create an occasion for 
care and practice to restore the natural and free com- 
mand of the postures and motions of the body. In the 
gestures of a speaker nothing more is needed than nat- 
uralness and simplicity • and the sole end of culture is to 
attain this. 

Though Dr. Griffin was so much in the habit of criti- 
cism upon the performances of others, he rarely made 
critical remarks upon the sermons, even of his own stu- 
dents, which he heard in the pulpit. He took special 
pains to have it understood, that when he went to the 
house of God to hear his word, it was a matter of prin- 
ciple with him not to let his mind take the attitude of 
criticism. If he ever made a remark (as he seldom did) 
by way of correction upon the sermons he heard upon 



86 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



the Sabbath, it was conmionly prefaced thus: "I did 
not hear as a critic, but this thought struck me by the 
way." One may easily conceive that from his customary 
employment as a teacher, it would require an effort ir. 
him to avoid a critical habit of mind when sitting unde: 
the preaching of the Gospel by others. Indeed, all jnin 
isters, from the character of their employment in the com 
position of sermons, are very liable to fall into thi 
temptation. Probably this is one of the circumstance 
which has given rise to the common remark, that minis 
ters are not apt to be good parishioners. This remark i 
true, however, only in application to some ministers ; fo 
while some are bad parishioners, others are the very best 
Dr. Griffin would no doubt have fallen among the latte 
class. It was evidently, with him, not a matter of affec 
tation, but of principle, that, when he sat to hear th 
Gospel as an ordinance of God, he should put his min 
in an attitude to be appropriately affected by the wor 
preached ; that, whether it was uttered with the skill of 
master or not, whatever divine truth was uttered claime 
a reverent hearing, and demanded obedience, because 
was the word of God. He took special pains to incu 
cate this important truth, both by word and practic( 
We cannot recall a single instance in which he spoke i^ 
disparaging terms of any preacher he had heard. An- 
when he sat as a hearer in the pew, he was remarkably 
careful of his postures, and of the expression of his coun- 
tenance, that all should betoken a reverent attention. 
Indeed, in every way he showed that the preaching of the 
Gospel was with him not a mere matter of professional 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 87 



duty; but that he carried with it that comprehensive 
solicitude for the well being of man which the Gospel 
breathes and dictates. 

The manner in which Dr. Griffin hailed the opening of 
the temperance enterprize furnishes an example of this 
remark. Previous to this time he had followed the cus- 
toms prevalent in good society, when the decanter of 
brandy on the dinner table was a necessary decoration 
at the entertainment of friends. During the greater part 
of his ministry, his associates had been among the higher 
circles of society. He was prepared, therefore, to attach 
quite as much importance to existing sociak customs as 
they deserved. But as soon as the great principle of the 
temperance reform, by the doctrine of abstinence, was 
announced, immediately he conferred not with flesh and 
blood, but espoused it with his whole heart. He was 
quick to see its bearings upon the interests of the college ; 
and at the Commencement, next after the beginning of 
this reform, he took occasion, before all. the guests and 
strangers assembled at the Commencement dinner, to give 
in his adhesion to the cause. In the form of an apology 
for excluding the customary provision of wine and brandy, 
he prefaced the dinner by a brief, but very effective tem- 
perance speech ; and this at a time when probably most 
^of the gentlemen present had not seriously entertained 
the new temperance theory. 

The course of Dr. Griffin's preaching, taken as a 
whole, was very effective in impressing his own views of 
doctrine on his hearers. It left no one in doubt as to 
what were his views, on any important point, nor on what 



88 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



reasons they were enforced. He seemed to have a happy 
faculty of finding out the knots which needed to be un- 
tied, and the dark spots upon which light needed to he 
thrown. The nests in which Pelagian errors are hatched 
he seemed to find by instinct, and to demolish at a touch. 
The vagueness of the students' ideas touching matters of 
doctrine, would disappear before a power which compelled 
them to discriminate. We now recollect an instance in 
our own experience. In one of the earliest sermons 
which we heard from him, our attention was' arrested by 
a remark to this effect : That no man had the power of 
originating holiness within himself. We had , before this 
time embraced Calvinistic doctrines, as far as we under- 
stood them. Indeed we never had a serious misgiving 
that the Bible taught any other system. The Westmin- 
ster Catechism had cut its channels of Scriptural theology 
in our own mind too deep for them to be diverted to an 
opposite creed. But about the point referred to there 
was a vagueness of conception, under which a real error 
lurked ; so that we were startled, as from a dream, when 
told that none had the power of originating holiness 
within themselves. Many of our former habits of think- 
ing were assailed by this position. Yet a brief consider- 
ation of the point, in its doctrinal relations, brought con- 
viction that it was in full harmony with the whole system 
of salvation by grace. Instead of this being an error, 
we found it to be a potent truth ; and the illumination of 
that square inch of surface spread light over a wide field 
of related truths. It was a common matter of experi- 
ence, under his preaching, that the light was finding its 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 89 



way into those dark places of the mind where it was most 
wanted. 

Then, as to the result : His labors in the college, it 
is well known, covered a period in which the public mind 
had a special activity in developing more and more lax 
views of theology ; but, as far as our observation extends, 
very few of the students who passed through the college, 
with any religious character, while under his administra- 
tion, have since favored these lax views. 

In regard to doctrinal preaching his advice was, to 
preach thorough doctrinal sermons, and even courses of 
such sermons, whenever there seemed to be special occa- 
sion for them, or when the minds of the people specially 
needed instruction in relation to them. But for the gen- 
eral course of indoctrination, it was better to introduce a 
doctrine as a small part of a sermon • often as a striking 
argument or illustration in a single paragraph ; and also 
to use doctrines as the basis of a practical or hortatory 
discourse. This was in truth his own prevailing method. 
Few preachers have kept the great doctrine of grace 
more effectually before the mind, in their general course 
of preaching, than Dr. Griffin ; and yet he had compara- 
tively few discourses that were formal discussions of a 
doctrine. 

His rule, that a large portion of our sermons should 
be so made as to be suitable to be preached in revivals of 
religion, was fully adhered to by himself. The style of 
his preaching evinced more hope and expectation of re- 
vivals than often appears, in ordinary times ; and when- 
ever there was even the least indication of a revived 
6 



90 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



interest among the students, he was all alive. He took 
special pains to secure the co-operation of the students 
professing religion, in measures for promoting revivals in 
college. He would even visit their rooms, and engage in 
prayer with them for this object. 

The work of divine grace, in the formation of the 
character of Dr. Griffin, was more manifest than it would 
have been in some persons of a different natural constitu- 
tion. If he had never come 'under the power of godli- 
ness, he would inevitably have exhibited an uncommon 
share of the " old man." His emotional nature was 
exceedingly strong and quick. When off his guard he 
was very apt to give forth an impatient word, or to speak 
unadvisedly with his lips. But as quick as thought the 
motions of repentance would come; and then neither 
expressions nor tears of repentance were wanting. 

Dr. Griffin was not deficient in an appreciation of the 
religious character of others. To illustrate a point in the 
recitation room, he once made a remark which has often 
recurred to us since. There was among his ministerial 
acquaintances, a man who had just before that time 
preached before the students. He was a very uninterest- 
ing preacher, and to strangers he had the appearance of 
being a very inferior man. But Dr. Griffin seemed to 
regard him with special interest and affection, fie re- 
lated to the students a portion of his history, and 
said that some years before, he was called to bury a 
son. He had a large family of children, all of whom, 
-excepting this son, were hopeful Christians. He, 
though of a spotless moral character, and of a fine intel- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 91 



lect, showed a decided aversion to experimental religion. 
This son had died. Dr. Griffin, not long after, met the 
father, and made allusion to his affliction, and to his son's 
dying without hope. The father seemed perfectly com- 
posed and tranquil, and said, in all solemnity of utter- 
ance : " If God wants my son to glorify his justice, it is 
not mine to withhold him. I can say amen." Said Dr. 
Griffin, " That remark made me feel smaller than 1 ever 
did before. I could not but reverence the man who had 
attained that sublime elevation of godliness." He was 
fully conscious that it" was far above anything of which he 
himself was capable. 

Some leading members of one of the churches over 
which he was settled, (he was, in the course of his life, 
four times in the pastoral charge,) came to him with a 
request that he would alter the style of his preaching. 
They said they had been to great expense, in order to 
render their church edifice as attractive as possible, 
especially to the more wealthy and influential portions of 
the people, and had entertained strong expectations of 
drawing them in ; but in this respect they had been 
wholly disappointed. Their impression was that this class 
of the people had been repelled, in consequence of his 
preaching so much of the stern and offensive doctrines, 
and exhibiting so much of terror in his sermons. They 
wished to know of him if he could not modify his manner 
of preaching, by dwelling less on this class of doctrines, 
and thus obviate the objections of such hearers. He 
replied : " Gentlemen, you will naturally suppose that I 
am no less interested than you to secure the attendance of 



92 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



this class of persons ; but if you think that I can preach 
one word less or more, for that purpose, you are under a 
great mistake." 

The gentlemen retired. His thought reverted to God's 
charge, given to the Prophet Ezekiel, " Son of man, I 
have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel ; 
therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn 
them from me." In the musings thus awakened, he took 
up the sermon which now appears in his published series, 
under the title of The Watchman, and preached it on 
the next Sabbath. That sermon, which is in itself one 
of his most impressive discourses, will strike the mind 
with special force, when read with this knowledge of its 
history. In the body of the sermon he sets forth the fact, 
that it is impossible for ministers to preach the whole 
truth without giving offence, because the character and 
destiny of sinners is such that they cannot bear to hear 
them faithfully described ; and that many sinners expect 
that ministers will take the part of a revolted world 
against God, and will sigh and condole with them, as poor 
injured beings, because they cannot bear to be charged 
with rebellion, and urged to relinquish their idols, and to 
have their present peace assailed by prophecies of evil to 
come. He tells his hearers, that if they will point out a 
way in which he can sustain his duty to God, and his ten- 
derness to their immortal interests, one for which they 
themselves would not reproach him another day, he would 
gladly spare them. A hardened sinner, he says, does 
not need so much to be built up, as to be pulled down ; 
not so much to believe that he may be pardoned, as that he 



RECOLLECTIONS OP DR. GRIFFIN. 



93 



needs pardon ; not so much to know that there is a Phy- 
sician, as that he is sick. You may hold up the remedy, 
and descant on divine mercy, but till men feel that they 
are undone they will vacantly gaze at the pretty display, 
smile in your face, and think no more of it. In the pro- 
cess of bringing sinners to Christ the several operations 
of instruction, awakening, conviction and conversion, are 
produced by the instrumentality of awful and soul- 
humbling, as well as comforting truths. He then 
adduces the example of Christ and his apostles, who 
declared the controversy that God had with men, and from 
lips warm with prayer, poured forth vehement curses 
against the wicked. Yes, the same lips on which the 
strains of immortal love delighted to dwell, and which, 
when opening on the theme of redeeming grace, breathed 
the fragrance of a thousand isles, when they came to 
direct their breath against sin would make an eruption 
which threatened to bury nations under the burning 
lava. 

Having presented with great force an argument show- 
ing the necessity of plainly declaring these unwelcome 
truths, he concludes the discourse as follows : 

" For these several reasons, I dare not suppress or 
soften those sublime and terrible truths which the Divine 
law pronounces, lest my God should take me away ; and, 
with my present convictions, I never shall ; unless upon 
one condition, and on that I will make the agreement with 
you. If you will all, my dear hearers, become the 
friends of God, I will sound his threatenings against you 
no more. I would it were thus ! I confess I am weary 



94 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



of this gloomy part of my duty. I would much rather, 
from the fountain of the promises, pour into your yield- 
ing hearts the consolations of religion. Come, be the 
friends of God, and I will give you pain no more. But 
while many of you delay, neither tenderness to you nor 
the dread responsibility of a watchman will allow me to 
suppress these awful truths. Do any yet plead, that 
they might be more influenced by tender topics ? Prove 
it, then, by being influenced by them. By the tenderest 
accents of mercy you have often been addressed. Argu- 
ments have been brought, as was fit, from the yearnings 
of immortal love and from the bloody dust of Calvary. 
Every wound of a dying Christ has pleaded with you ; 
and a thousand melting invitations, warm from heaven, 
have mingled their sounds about your ears. Prove then 
your doctrine true by turning to God. Mercy has 
exhausted her sounds upon you ; and if she would con- 
tinue to plead she must repeat the same sounds again. 
If, then, such sounds can move you, why, my beloved 
friends, do you not come ? What obstruction is there in 
the way ? come ! Else, and if you still complain 
that harsher means are used, what a strange appearance 
will you make in the eyes of heaven. Refusing to 
be melted by the voice of mercy, yet unwilling to hear 
the voice of justice ! A king finds some of his subjects 
in unreasonable rebellion, and condemns them to the 
rack ; but in mercy sends his servants with offers of par- 
don, on condition that they lay down their arms. They 
reject the offer, and then complain that accusations and 
threatenings are added. 'Let the king,' say they, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 95 

' change his words, or let his servants change them. 
Perhaps we might consent if softer terms were used.' 
Presumptuous men ! And did you think to confer a 
favor on the king by accepting pardon ? Know ye that 
he has no need of you, and that it was in mere pity that 
he made the offer. And since you will not accept 
of mercy, receive your sentence, ' Ye shall surely 
die.' 

" Now then, my friends, my reasons are all before you ; 
and I hope to be justified by your conscience, while I 
proceed to execute the commission given me in my text. 
God has said to the wicked, wicked man, thou shalt 
surely die ; and the watchmen are commanded, upon 
their peril, to sound the alarm. I therefore solemnly 
declare in the name of God, that there is a dreadful war 
waged by all the divine perfections against sin ; that all 
the power which supports the rights of heaven has taken 
the field ; that every glory of the Godhead points a livid 
lightning at your breast ; that the inviolable honor of 
heaven's King is enlisted, and is coming down to crush a 
rebellious world. 

" In equally solemn tones I declare, as my office bids 
me, and call every angel to witness, that in this war, God 
is right, and the world is wrong. This great truth, 
while I live, I will declare ; and hope to pronounce it 
with my dying breath. God is right, and the world is 
wrong. I wish it were set forth in broad letters on every 
forehead, and, with a pen dipped in heaven, were written 
upon every heart. I wish it were posted in sunbeams at 
the corner of every street, and were graven with the point 



96 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



of a diamond on the rock forever. Let this great truth 
pass from land to land, to prostrate nations of unknown 
tongues, and rolling through every . clime, bring a 
humbled world to their Eedeemer's feet. 

" Standing on my watchtower, I am commanded, if I 
see aught of evil coming, to give warning. I again 
solemnly declare, that I do see evil approaching ; I see 
a storm collecting in the heavens ; I discover the com- 
motion of the troubled elements ; I hear the war of dis- 
tant winds. Heaven and earth seemed mingled in the 
conflict ; and I cry to those for whom I watch, a storm ! 
a storm ! Get into the ark, or you are swept away ! 
Ah, what is it I see ? I see a world convulsed, and fall- 
ing to ruins ; the sea burning like oil ; nations rising from 
under ground ; the sun falling ; the damned in chains 
before the bar, and some of my poor hearers with them. 
I see them cast from the battlements of the judgment 
seat. My God, the eternal pit has closed upon them 
forever ! " 

While, in his sermons, Dr. Griffin was more than 
usually original, he had, to an uncommon degree, the 
habit of borrowing from himself. By this we do not 
mean that constant repetition of the same phrases and 
illustrations which gives the hearer the impression that 
he is always hearing the same thing. There was former- 
ly a very worthy minister in that vicinity, of whom his 

people used to say, Mr. is a very fine preacher. 

Let him take what text he will, the sermon amounts to 
just the same — " just four pound ten." From this style 
of preaching, Dr. Griffin was as far removed as the poles. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 97 

Not only were his sermons remarkably unlike those of 
other preachers, but each of his own were remarkably 
unlike others of his own ; except where some splendid 
passage from a sermon, as in some few instances, was 
introduced entire into another. There is no question, 
that when his mind had hit upon some powerful illustra- 
tion of truth, or some felicitous appeal to the conscience 
and passions, he was wont to elaborate it so thoroughly, 
and keep it in his mind so long, as to retain a lasting 
impression from it ; so that it could not fail of recurring 
to his mind, as often as he came to a point of discourse 
where it was relevant. In such a case he did not scruple 
to make use of the whole passage. That he thought 
there was no impropriety in this, is manifest from his 
having done it in his printed sermons. An instance of 
this kind occurs in the sermon which he preached before 
the American Board of Foreign Missions, at Middletown, 
Conn. He employed in that sermon a most powerful 
and melting appeal, which appears also in a sermon, in 
his two volumes, bearing the title of " The Lamb in the 
midst of his Father's Throne. " 

From this habit of Dr. Griffin, it was rendered, per- 
haps, especially unwise for his friends to have published 
a volume of his sermons from his manuscripts, additional 
to the two volumes which he had selected and prepared 
for publication himself. The Doctor evidently judged 
best about the availability of his own productions, and 
the additional volume has probably added nothing to his 
usefulness. His sermons, as selected and prepared by 
himself, for the press, have had as yet, we apprehend, 



98 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



but a comparative limited circulation. We know not 
indeed how extensive it has been. But they were pub- 
lished in an expensive style, and probably paid a liberal 
rate for copyright. Other temporary causes also have as 
yet restricted their circulation. We know that sermons 
are not the most marketable of literary wares. But we 
have confidence that there is that in these sermons of Dr. 
Griffin which posterity will not suffer to die. There is a 
life and pulse in them which indicates immortality. 
There is upon them the image and superscription of a 
very powerful mind, and one as original and peculiar as 
it was powerful. The characteristics of thought and 
utterance are so striking, that, when those who have per- 
sonally known their author shall ail have followed him to 
their graves, his living thoughts will still command atten- 
tion. The generation in which Dr. Griffin fulfilled his 
course will have those among its foremost preachers who 
will be held in honor by other ages; and who, of that 
generation, is entitled to a higher place than he ? 

In the practice of publishing the refuse material of 
distinguished writers, we think their friends are very apt 
to commit an error. The experiment has often been 
made. The assumption appears to be, that the author 
still holds such a place in public estimation that any- 
thing from his pen will be read with interest, and may 
be safely published. But the truth is, the intelligent 
portion of readers well understand that after an author's 
manuscripts have been culled, and the cream of them 
extracted, it is not reasonable to expect much from the 
residuum. An experiment was made a few years ago, in 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 99 



the publication of an additional volume from trie works of 
President Edwards. We are not particularly informed 
as to the success of this new volume. We are well sat- 
isfied, however, that its sales have Ibeen but limited. 
The manuscript sermons of such authors are not like the 
Sibylline leaves, increasing in value as they diminish in 
numbers. 

We have spoken of Dr. Griffin's habit of borrowing 
from himself ; and have referred to an example where he 
gave to the public the same passage in two printed ser- 
mons. We. think the passage referred to will bear to be 
printed again ; and we avail ourselves of this opportunity 
to lay it before our readers. 

" How delightful to contemplate the honors which 
encircle the Lamb in the midst of the Father's throne ! 
After wanderiog an exile from heaven for more than 
thirty years, for our revolt, bow joyous to know that he 
has found a home ! After the crown of thorns, we are 
happy to see him wear the. diadem of the universe. 
After depending for bread on the charity of his female 
followers, we are glad to see him the heir of all things, 
and able in turn to impart to others. After being so 
long neglected and despised by men, we rejoice that he 
has found those who know how to honor his worth ; we 
exult to hear the shout of all heaven in his praise. After 
the agonies of the garden and the cross, we sing and 
shout for joy, that he has found infinite and eternal 
delight in the glory of his Father, and the salvation of 
his church. Let him have his happiness and his honors ! 
Amidst all the sufferings of life, it shall be our solace, 



100 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



that the despised Nazarene has found his throne — that 
the man of sorrows is happy at last. Of all the luxuries 
that ever feasted the human soul, the sweetest is to see 
the Lamb that was slain in the midst of his Father's 
throne. We will embalm his name in our grateful 
hearts. We will embalm it by our praise, which shall 
live while we have breath, and sink away on our dying 
lips. And we will embalm it among the songs of the 
upper world. If we are permitted to come and stand 
where the elders bow, how will we bow and sing ! When 
we shall look down to hell and see our old companions 
there, and then back to Calvary, and then look up and 
read the touching traces of love in those melting eyes, 
and among the prints of the nails and thorns, we will 
embalm his name, if love and songs can do it. We will 
tell all heaven of his love. If ever new inhabitants 
should come in from other worlds, they shall hear the 
story of Calvary. If commissioned in remote ages of 
eternity, to visit other systems, we will carry the amaz- 
ing tidings to them. We will tell them to all we meet. 
We will erect monuments of the wonderful facts on every 
plain of heaven, and inscribe them all over with the story 
of the manger, the garden, and the cross. While grati- 
tude and truth remain, the name and love of Jesus never 
shall be forgotten.'' 



CHAPTER VII. 



REVIVALS AKD SPURIOUS REVIVAL MEASURES. 

The early formation of his ministerial character, as 
we have seen, was amidst the remarkable revivals in 
Litchfield County, Conn., which signalized the opening of 
the present century. He was always awake to whatever 
related to revivals, and deeply anxious to promote the 
work of the spirit among the students. His estimate of 
the character of other ministers was very much in propor- 
tion to their adaptedness to such scenes and labors. On 
one occasion, speaking of one of the students, of very 
brilliant intellect and fine preaching talents, he expressed 
his admiration of his talents, but, added — "Will he 
pray down the Holy Ghost ? I fear not. 93 Subsequent 
experience, however, happily disappointed this fear. 

It may be well to glance at the records of his experi- 
ence in revivals. The first place in which he preached 
while a candidate, was the small village of New Salem, 
Conn. Here he preached about six months. The result, 
under the divine blessing, was a powerful revival, and the 
gathering of a church. About a hundred were there 
hopefully converted. Next he preached in Farmington, 
in the same State \ where he received and accepted a call 



102 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



to settle, bat afterwards withdrew his acceptance. Here 
too he had important fruit of his labors. Next he 
preached a few Sabbaths in Middlebury, Conn., where 
he was also instrumental of several hopeful conver- 
sions. In New Hartford, Conn , the place of his first 
settlement, no sooner had he begun to preach, than a re- 
vival of considerable power succeeded. To appreciate 
these facts, it must be borne in mind that they occurred 
at a time when all around was a scene of spiritual dearth. 
Those great and general revivals which soon followed, 
had their beginning in these of which we have spoken. 
In allusion to this subject, in after life, he said, — "I had 
an opportunity to see the whole field of death before a 
bone began to move ; and no one who comes upon the 
stage forty years afterwards, can have any idea of the 
state of things at that time." 

His ministry in New Hartford continued about five 
years, in which time occurred in that place one of those 
great revivals which signalized that period, and that re- 
gion. That was the time of his being associated in labor 
with Haliock, Gillett and Mills. Being compelled to go 
abroad for the health of his wife, he spent some months 
in preaching in a vacant pulpit in Orange, N. J. Then 
a powerful revival commenced. The whole society was 
moved, and people came in from abroad to behold the 
wonderful works of God, and to spread the heavenly 
influence. Soon after this, he was settled in Newark, N. 
J., over one of the largest congregations in the country. 
Here, besides being largely blessed in his work among 
his own people, he spent much time in visiting and 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 103 



preaching in the neighboring churches, and he had great 
fruit of his labor. In the year 1807 there occurred, 
under his ministry in Newark, one of the most powerful 
revivals ; as the fruit of which ninety-seven persons joined 
the church in one day, and about two hundred in all. 
He remained with the church eight years ; during which 
time he received to its communion on profession three 
hundred and seventy-two persons. 

Passing through Andover to the Park Street Church 
in Boston, he found a harder field ; but not an entire 
absence of reviving influence. Boston was then filled 
with a leaven which all but excluded evangelical influ- 
ences, and every inch of ground here was contested. 
In a letter to Dr. Richards, written from the midst of the 
scene of his labors here, he says : " The small degree of 
divine influence with which we have been favored has 
brought ninety-one persons to our inquiry meeting, within 
a year and a half. Sabbath after next, I expect to admit 
eleven persons from the world. Still there are trials and 
discouragements which almost tempt me to give out." 
After his re-settlement in Newark, he had labored little 
more than a year before another revival commenced. 
Though this second period of his ministry here was not 
above five years, he found it fruitful in conversions, — 
which is the great end of the ministry. 

Such is a brief sketch of Dr. Griffin's experience and 
instrumentality in revivals of religion before he went 
to Williams College. Few settled pastors have enjoyed 
a ministry in this view more fruitful. It is not to be 
wondered at that when he came to the college he brought 



104 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



a mind so intent upon revivals. If any reader has taken 
up the very common notion, that a thorough exhibition of 
the strong points of evangelical doctrine is not adapted to 
promote revivals, let him find his correction here. It is 
well known what doctrines were held forth by Dr. Grif- 
fin. They appear in his printed sermons ; and, in his 
own day, they made him sign to be spoken against. 
And respecting them as being instrumental of that aston- 
ishing revival in Litchfield County, in which he bore a 
part with Hallock, Mills and others, he wrote as follows 
in a letter to the Evangelical Magazine : "In this work 
the Divine Spirit seems to have borne a strong testimony 
to the truth of those doctrines which are generally 
embraced in our churches, and which are often distin- 
guished by the appellation of Calvinism. These doc- 
trines appear to have been the sword of the Spirit, by 
which sinners have been pricked in their hearts; and 
to have been like a fire and like a hammer which 
breaketh the rock in pieces. It is under the weekly dis- 
play of these that the work has been carried on in all our 
towns." 

The author of his published Memoir says : — " The 
history of his life seems little else than one unbroken 
revival ; and it would, perhaps, be difficult to name the 
individual in our country, since the days of Whitefield, 
who was instrumental of an equal number of hopeful 
conversions. But while he possessed, in so high a degree, 
the spirit of revivals, he had no communion with the 
spirit of fanaticism. When he found a community at the 
very highest point of religious excitement, he still insisted 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 105 



that everything should be done decently and in order. 
No man deplored more deeply than he, the erratic and 
extravagant measures by which so many of our more 
modern revivals have been marked. 

No one could be more sensitive than he was, in respect 
to any influences tending to corrupt the minds of the 
students with false views of religion. The time had come 
in which the churches were agitated in view of what were 
called new measurse and new revival doctrines. The 
colleges were special points of attraction for the operators 
in these matters, inasmuch as novelties were supposed to 
be very taking with young men, and also because among 
the young men in college were to be found the future 
ministry of the country ; so that impressions here made 
would have great breadth and efficiency in the religious 
world. 

Such were the relations between the college and the 
church in William stown, that gaining access to the one 
was to gain access to the other. The two worshipped 
together on the Sabbath, the pastor of the church occu- 
pying the pulpit two-thirds of the time, and the Presi- 
dent of the college the other third. This of necessity 
brought the President into intimate relations with the 
pastor; and up to this time these relations had been 
remarkably cordial. The two incumbents had some im- 
portant points of resemblance. Both were men of ardent 
minds, and especially ardent in the promotion of revivals 
of religion. Neither of them was apt to love by the 
halves. Their mutual attachment seemed to be intense, 
7 



106 



RECOLLECTIONS OP DR. GRIFFIN. 



and their co-operation harmonious. Mr. Gridley, the 
pastor, was, compared with Dr. Griffin, a young man. 
Having been settled very young, however, he had been 
there from ten to fifteen years ; and during the period of 
Dr. Griffin's connection with him, the Doctor had con- 
tributed, in no small degree, to make his pastoral relations 
with his people happy. But now came a time of tempta- 
tion and trial. The ardor of Mr. Gridley's feelings had 
not as effective a balance, in mature and sound views of 
divine truth, as had Dr. Griffin's ; and early in the history 
of the new measures, he threw himself wholly into their 
current without reserve. Against the most decided views 
and wishes of Dr. Griffin he called in one of the most 
objectionable of the operators in those measures; and 
caused to be enacted there all the scenes which belonged 
to that sad drama, and which are too well known to need 
here to be described. Then it was that the pulpit be- 
came divided against itself. Dr, Griffin preached the 
sermons which he had preached many times before ; for 
he rarely wrote a new sermon after he came to the col- 
lege, except for some special occasion. The sermons 
which he preached at this time were mostly those which had 
done such powerful execution in the remarkable revivals 
through which he had passed in the former years of his 
ministry. In his turn Dr. Griffin would preach one of 
these sermons, and on the next Sabbath, Mr. Gridley 
would come out in direct opposition to it. We have 
gome little occasion to remember this conflict, having 
ourselyes lost some feathers in it. The illustration which 
the incident may give of the spirit of those times, may 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 107 



perhaps justify the introduction of a matter in such a 
sense personal to ourselves. Being at Williamstown, on 
a visit to friends, and being invited to take Dr. Griffin's 
place in preaching, we preached an old sermon on God's 
Power in Preventing Sin. We anticipated, however, 
no such effect as it produced. Mr. Gridley sat in the 
pulpit, till the close of the service ; and then, without 
speaking a word, left it in an instant, and never spoke to 
us afterwards, though we had been on intimate terms 
before. We asked Dr. Griffin what it meant ; and if 
there was anything offensively pointed in what had been 
said in the discourse. He said the sermon was pointed 
in that it was exactly to the point. We found that there 
was existing a state of excitement, of which we have had 
no adequate idea. Under its influence, no doubt, some 
of the students called for the printing of the sermon, 
which was granted. This state of things could not long 
continue ; and the result was, that the college withdrew 
and worshipped in the college chapel. Not a few of the 
more conservative members of the congregation also went 
and worshipped with them. Mr. Gridley's relations 
to his people were first marred and then broken 
up ; and a pastorate which for a course of years, had 
been eminently happy and successful, came te> an un- 
timely end. 

In connection with this trying experience, Dr. Griffin's 
mind became deeply interested in resisting the efforts 
which were making to bring in new views of theology. 
He preached and punted sermons on the subject, and 
corresponded with Dr. Taylor and others, for the purpose 



108 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



of ascertaining and eliciting the views of the new side of 
the question. For some years this seemed to constitute 
the main theme of his study and conversation. The 
result was the publication of his treatise entitled Divine 
Efficiency, in which he presented a view of that subject 
which he thought very important to meet the errors of 
the times. This work would, of course, be variously 
estimated, according to the reader's own views of the sub- 
ject discussed. It was the last considerable work which 
Dr. Griffin gave to the public. He said of it : " When 
I sat down to write my treatise on Divine Efficiency, I 
was out of health, and was so lame that I could not take 
exercise. It occurred to me, that to write that book 
without exercise, would cost me my life. But I was so 
affected with the dishonor cast on God, by denying him 
the glory of officially sanctifying the heart, that I said 
with tears, I will write this book and die ; meaning I will 
write it if I die. I wrote it with a tender regard for the 
divine glory which I was defending. I never wrote a 
book with so much feeling of this sort ; nor a sermon, 
■except one." 

This last allusion is to a sermon which Dr. Griffin 
wrote to preach, as one of what was called the " Murray 
Street Lectures." There was at that time a series of 
lectures sustained in New York under this name, by some 
of the most distinguished clergymen of the country, 
against infidelity. Dr. Griffin had been invited to preach 
one of the series ; and in this instance is presented one of 
the very rare cases in which a sermon prepared to meet 
the case of a single individual, has been effectually to 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN, 109 

that purpose. The family of one of his most intimate 
friends in TVilliamstown, was composed of two brothers 
and their wives, the ladies also being sisters, living 
together as one family. They were wealthy, liberal, and 
highly esteemed in society. They had all that this world 
and a hopeful prospect for the next could give to make 
them happy, except that one of the brothers was a disbe- 
liever in Revelation. He made no opposition to the 
religious views, zeal or liberality of the other members of 
the family. They had been accustomed, for a long 
course of years, to have weekly prayer meetings at their 
house, with his full concurrence. Nevertheless he had 
no belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures. He was a 
professional man, though at that time retired from the 
active duties of his profession. Dr. Griffin naturally felt 
a strong desire to convince this man of his error ; and 
when he came to prepare his sermon for the Murray St. 
Lecture, he set this person in his eye, and sought to 
frame his discourse so as to produce the desired impres- 
sion on his mind. 

" I wrote that sermon," he said, " with my eye on 
Dr. Whitman, then an infidel, and sick with what proved 
to be his last sickness. I was most deeply affected 
through the whole of it, and wrote it with a strong desire 
for the conviction and salvation of Dr. TV. He had just 
before resisted my arguments with vehemence, if not with 
passion. After I had finished my sermon, I read it to 
him, at two different sittings, half at a time. He never 
resisted afterwards ; and gave such evidence of his con- 



110 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



version and faith, that his pious wife and other pious 
friends, have no doubt that he went to heaven.'' 

The subject of revivals is continued in the following 

CONTRIBUTIONS OF OTHER FRIENDS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

In preparing the second edition of these Recollections, 
we requested some friends of Dr. Griffin to contribute 
what materials of interest their memories might furnish. 
The returns that have been made to that request, are 
here placed together without regard to an arrangement 
according to topics, excepting in a single case, when we 
wished to illustrate a particular topic of our own remarks. 
The first is from Rev. Samuel Merwin, of New Haven. 

Mason, Dwight, Backus, Griffin ! What a privilege 
to have seen them, and conversed with those mighty 
minds ! It is now almost fifty years since I first saw the 
last named of the four. It was in Newark, N. J., at the 
meeting of the Synod of New York and New Jersey. 
Having myself just buckled on the harness, and com- 
menced the warfare for life, it was an object of no ordi- 
nary interest, to one as yet without experience in the 
ministry, to attend the sessions, hear the speaking, and 
observe the proceedings of so large, distinguished and 
venerable a body. But Griffin towered pre-eminent, 
even along side of Kollock, Boudinot, Richards and 
Miller ; looked and spoke with a dignity and majesty, to 
which few men can make pretensions. His very form, 
air and bearing were those of a chief, actuated by innate 
greatness. The stranger that looked at his large, erect, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. Ill 



well proportioned form, or listened for the first time to 
the tones of his voice in public debate, instinctively 
asked, who is that man ? and attended with increasing 
interest as he proceeded to illumine, impress and per- 
suade. It was then and there, that a man of smaller 
physique, and as yet comparatively unknown to fame, 
modestly made his " debut," and left a sure mark for all 
coming time. The pastor of the church at East Hamp- 
ton, L. I., little thought how great a work he was doing 
in delivering before the Synod and the people of New- 
ark, his discourse on " the government o£ God desir- 
able," the publication of which secured at once celebrity 
to the name of Lyman Beecher, and now " legion " 
would not be misapplied to his progeny. Beecher was 
indeed a pigmy by the side of Griffin. But they were 
both intellectual and moral giants, rapidly developing 
their strength, with earnests of future and still increasing 
greatness, in the work of advancing the cause of truth 
and salvation. Without disparagement to any of the 
great and good men in the Synod, the association of 
Griffin and Beecher became inevitable in the mind of the 
writer. They were both as yet young, among their 
brethren, both in some respects ahead of their age, both 
fresh from scenes of spiritual effusion ; the one wearing 
the mantle and treading the footsteps of Buel, the junior 
cotemporary of Bellamy and Edwards ; the others had 
gone to Newark from the midst of, and redolent with, 
the scenes which had been but as yesterday so widely 
realized, in connection with Hallock and Mills, at New 
Hartford, Sunbury, and Torringford. Circumstances 



112 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



seemingly incidental, made these two the most " observed 
of all observers." And in the life of Griffin especially 
that day was an era. The sessions of the Synod termi- 
nated, but not their effects on him and the people of his 
charge. The holy inexpressible impulse by which he 
was actuated, bore him onward and upward, to the speedy 
realization of the unprecedented outpouring of the Spirit, 
described in his letter of March, 1808, to Rev. Dr. 
Green, of Philadelphia. 

" The leaven was secretly and increasingly working for 
nine months, before it became evident. Thus at a time 
when everything appeared to be still around us, secret 
anxieties were pressing upon a number of persons, which 
so far from being the effect of sympathy, were known 
only to God, and themselves; at a lecture preached in a 
private house, the first feelings which denoted the extra- 
ordinary presence of God and the actual commencement 
of a revival of religion, were awakened, perhaps in every 
person that was present. It was no longer doubtful, 
whether a work of divine grace had begun. During that 
and the following week, increasing symptoms of a power- 
ful influence were discovered. The appearance was as if 
a collection of waters, long suspended over the town, had 
fallen at once to deluge the whole place. For several 
weeks the people would stay at the close of every even- 
ing service, to hear some new exhortations, and it seemed 
impossible to persuade them to depart, until those on 
whose lips they hung had retired. At those seasons, you 
might see a multitude weeping and trembling around 
their minister ; many others standing as astonished spec- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 113 



tators of the scene, and beginning to tremble themselves. 
I presume not less than a hundred were in tears at once. 
But this excitement of animal feeling soon subsided, and 
the work has ever since proceeded in profound silence. 
Early in September there were formed many private 
associations for prayer ; the happy influence of which has 
been manifestly and largely felt. I never before wit- 
nessed the communication of a spirit of prayer so earnest 
and general, nor observed such evident and remarkable 
answers to prayer. The agonies of parents have been 
such as to drive sleep from their eyes, and for weeks 
together have seemed to have been as great as their 
nature could sustain. 

* ' Many professors have been severely tried . Not a few 
have for a time given themselves over for lost. The 
Lord has indeed come to search Jerusalem with candles, 
and discover the men that are settled on their lees. This 
work in point of power and stillness exceeds all that I 
have ever seen. While it bears down everything with 
irresistible force, and seems about to dispense with human 
instrumentality, it moves with so much silence, that 
unless we attentively observe its effects, we are tempted 
at times to doubt whether anything uncommon is taking 
place. There are from two hundred and thirty to two 
hundred and fifty who hope they have become subjects of 
divine grace. They are of all ages, from nine years to 
seventy, and of all characters, including drunkards, 
apostates, infidels, and those who were lately malignant 
opposers. 

* ' While we gaze with wonder and delight at these glori- 



114 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



ous triumphs of the Prince of Peace, and weep for joy to 
hear our babes and sucklings sing hosannas to the Son of 
David, we cannot but join in the general response, and 
say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. 
Hosanna in the highest." S. M. 

REV. FREDERICK MARSHES CONTRIBUTIONS. 

The" several contributions that follow, are from Rev. 
Frederick Marsh, of Winchester Center, Conn. A part 
of them appeared in the first edition. 

Winchester Center, Conn., Jan. 8, 1855. 
Rev. Parsons Cooke. *Dear Sir: — I thank you, 
(for I know not whom else to thank) for the " Reminis- 
cences of Dr. Griffin." They contain numerous facts 
and statements (especially relating to his teaching, etc., in 
the college,) which are new to me ; and many with which 
I have long had a familiar acquaintance. It is very grate- 
ful to my feelings to see so much respecting that great and 
good man, thus presented to the public. I have been 
struck with the truthfulness of the statements generally, and 
it is gratifying to have so many things thus recalled to my 
recollection. Dr. Griffin came to New Hartford, Conn., 
my native town, in the autumn of 1794, when I was 
fourteen years old. I recollect as distinctly, as though it 
had been but yesterday, the afternoon, November 4, 
1798, when he preached that sermon, respecting Blind 
Bartimeus, under which, I believe from twenty to thirty 
persons were awakened ; and which was, visibly, the 
commencement of the second great revival under his min- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



115 



istry in that town. Although Dr. Griffin's Letters in the 
Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, giving an account of 
that revival, possess great interest and importance, the 
mere reading of them, by those not conversant with that 
great and good work, can give but a very imperfect idea 
of that scene of divine mercy and power, as it appeared 
to those who witnessed and felt it. 

I have spoken of your " Reminiscences " as truthful. 
Many of them correspond with what Dr. Griffin used to 
relate to me. While he related to me the history of his 
difficulties with Mr. Gridley, he used no censorious or 
hard words respecting him ; and, as to this feature of his 
character, I may add, that he would not suffer a censori- 
ous remark in his family, respecting an absent person, to 
go unrebuked. 4 'That is not Christian-like," he would 
say, — or words to this import. 

The case of Dr. Whitman, was very striking. I recol- 
lect with much interest what Dr. Griffin said to me, and 
the interesting account which Mrs. Whitman gave me of 
the nineteen years' concert of prayer which had been 
observed relative to Dr. Whitman and other relatives of 
the family. The trials which Dr. Griffin had in Boston, 
had much influence in rendering him tender of the repu- 
tation and character of others. In his early ministry, 
before he went to Newark, he used to insist much in his 
preaching, on disinterested benevolence, and good will to 
enemies. The scenes through which he passed in An- 
dover and Boston, furnished him abundant occasion for 
exercising love to enemies. I was forcibly impressed 
with a remark he made to me relative to his trials and 



116 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN". 



feelings in Boston. One rooming in May, 1818, while 
walking in his garden, in Newark, having given me a 
pretty full history of his trials in Andover and Boston, 
with great seriousness and solemnity, as though he were 
speaking in view of the Judgment, he said, " There were 
two things I never understood till I went to Boston. 
One was, I never before understood how Christ could let 
a man strike him on the face, and never change coun- 
tenance." 

In the account given in the " Reminiscences," respect- 
ing the occasion which led to Dr. Griffin's writing and 
delivering a sermon entitled, The Watchman, I suppose 
the circumstances stated occurred in Boston, though I 
have no direct evidence of it. All the facts stated might 
have occurred there. But the sermon was first written 
and preached in Newark. I heard him preach it to his 
former people, in New Hartford, in the summer of 1806. 
In the following spring, I spent several weeks in his fam- 
ily, at the time when Dr. Macwhorter was sick, and but 
a short time before he died. Dr. Griffin then stated to 
me what led him to prepare that sermon. He remarked 
for substance this, that it was Dr. Macwhorter's habit to 
deliver his sermons, and leave the doctrines or truths with- 
out application, contenting himself with dispensing the truth 
and leaving it there. On the other hand, you know, Sir, 
that Dr. Griffin's habit" was to get the truth clearly before 
the mind, and then direct his whole force to the application 
of it to the conscience and heart. This latter characteris- 
tic of Dr. Griffin's preaching was displeasing to Dr. Mac- 
whorter ; and so much so, that, one Sabbath, he alluded 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 117 



to Dr. Griffin's urgent application of his sermons in such 
a manner as implied decided disapprobation, if not cen- 
sure. This led him to write his sermon on Ez. 33 : 8; 
and I understood him to say that he preached it on the 
next Sabbath. The occasion for such a discourse in Bos- 
ton, was probably more urgent than that which led him 
to compose it at first. 

Now, Dear Sir, if you are the writer of these " Remi- 
niscences," I again thank you for them, as I think they 
are fitted to do much good; and if you are not the 
writer, I hope you will excuse the liberty I have taken, 
and believe me, 

Yours, with much respect and fraternal regard, 

Frederick Marsh. 

The following from Mr. Marsh, was subsequently re- 
ceived in compliance with a request made after his first 
letter. 

Rev, Parsons Cooke. Dear Sir — Your sugges- 
tion in the "Reminiscences of Dr. Griffin," has led 
me to consider whether my recollection can furnish 
anything respecting him worthy of public notice. I can 
easily recall many things which greatly interest my own 
feelings ; but the facts are miscellaneous, and can hardly 
be put in their proper relations without occupying too 
much space in your very valuable paper. I will however 
specify a few things which you may dispose of as you 
think best. 

In his early ministry, Dr. Griffin was subject to seasons 
of deep mental depression. He would sometimes come 



118 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



from his study in much distress, complaining to his fami- 
ly that he could not study, and tbat his sermons were 
" so flat," that nobody could hear him. But, when 
emerging from this gloomy state, his mind would act with 
unwonted vigor and success. In these- seasons, he did 
not enjoy his usually comforting evidence of personal 
piety. In a letter dated December 18, 1813, to a young 
minister of his acquaintance, he says : — " I am inter- 
ested to know what God has done among the people of 
your charge. From the trials with which he was exer- 
cising your mind in August, I concluded that he was pre- 
paring you to clo something more than common for his 
holy name. In former years, I used statedly to have 
those trials before revivals of religion ; and, before that 
in which you were born. I wholly gave up my hope for 
a time." It was about that period that he invited a few 
choice members of his church to meet in his study every 
Thursday evening, for the single purpose of praying for a 
revival of religion. As their interest increased, he called 
in others, till the meeting consisted of six or eight. It 
was strictly private, and, as he afterward assured me, 
became a scene of earnest wrestling. " If any one," 
said he, " had come in with a cold heart, it would have 
been like throwing water upon the fire. This small com-* 
pany continued thus wrestling week after week, unknown 
to the church at large. Nothing, externally, indicated 
any unusual tokens of the special presence of the Holy 
Spirit for two or three months. But the time had come * 
when those prayers were to be answered, and when God 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN, 119 



was to be seen as a prayer hearing God. " It may be of some 
interest here to relate a providential incident, which led to 
an open manifestation of that for which those few souls 
had been so importunately pleading. About the first of 
November, Mr. and Mrs. Griffin rode out for exercise, 
and a short call on the Rev. Mr. Hallock. Meeting 
them as they approached his house, " Brother Griffin," 
said Mr. Hallock, " the Lord is here ; and you must stay 
and preach to night.' ' The circumstances in which they 
had left home seemed utterly to forbid his complying with 
so unexpected a request. But so urgent was that good 
man, that they consented. The time for the meeting was 
near. The Dr. had no sermon with him, and but a short 
time to fix on a subject for his discourse. After a few 
moments' retirement, they went to the meeting; and on 
the way Dr. Griffin seemed distressed even to groaning. 
He preached from Matt. 20 : 30 ; and with happy effect. 
Returning home the next day, he wrote out that sermon, 
and on the following Sabbath preached it to his own peo- 
ple. In the morning, I think his text was, " My soul, 
wait thou only upon God ; for my expectation is from 
him." This, I believe, was the sermon, concerning 
which he has somewhere said, " That he hardly raised his 
eyes from his manuscript during its delivery, scarcely 
caring whether the audience heard or not ; feeling that 
the question of a revival or no revival must be settled in 
heaven." But, in the afternoon, in his discourse from 
Matt. 20 : 30, his whole appearance and manner formed 
a perfect contrast to that of the morning. Never before 
nor afterwards, did I hear him preach with such solemnity, 



120 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



such fervency, and with such pleading and impassioned 
earnestness. Nor have I ever witnessed such visible 
effect on an audience. The stillness and solemnity was 
awful. Nearly, or quite thirty persons were supposed to 
have been awakened under that sermon, and the revival 
like a sudden flame burst forth from that hour and spread 
into all parts of the town, increasing in power and in- 
terest for four months, and continued with great interest 
to the following summer. Long after he left New Hartford, 
Dr. Griffin assured me that he had never seen another 
such hour. This portion of his history deserves attention, 
not so much for the view which it gives of the man, as 
for the manifestations which it affords of the wisdom and 
grace of God, in thus preparing him for his subsequent 
labors in that revival, and for yet more successful labors 
in larger communities in following years. Under the dis- 
cipline of those three months, he became more acquainted 
with his own heart ; better qualified to deal wisely with 
awakened and convicted souls ; received deeper impres- 
sions of human dependence ; and, at the same time, was 
led to feel more the importance of great fidelity and 
earnestness in declaring all the counsel of God. It has 
often seemed to me, that he rarely, if ever, appeared more 
able and interesting than he did in the conference meet- 
ings of that revival. In those meetings he never used to 
preach. In crowded rooms, where scores of anxious and 
deeply convicted persons of various ages were present, ho 
would in a familiar and skilful manner adapt his remarks 
to the condition of persons in the different states of mind 
prevalent at such seasons, revealing to many their mental 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 121 

exercises more clearly than they could themselves relate 
them. In exposing the excuses of awakened sinners, in 
answering objections, in showing the guilt of unbelief, in 
urging the duty of immediate repentance, in kindly and 
faithfully aiding young converts to ascertain the character 
of their hopes, he showed great knowledge of the Scrip- 
tures and of the human heart, and with happy effect. 
His judicious, and abounding labors in that revival, and 
his great care and skill in leading those who professed 
hope to discriminate much between true and false hopes, no 
doubt, contributed to the purity of that work of grace. 
Numbers beside the hundred who joined that church, as 
fruits of that revival, professed religion ; and among 
them all, I have never known of more than one who has 
forfeited his Christian character by anything like apostacy. 
With most of them I have been personally acquainted, 
with many of them intimately ; and have had the happi- 
ness of seeing many of them eminent for stability, piety, 
and usefulness. 

One of the characteristics of that revival was, that in 
many cases, convictions were very deep and pungent; 
and, in a few instances, the mental distress prevented 
entirely all other attention to business for weeks. And 
convictions, generally, in the early part of the revival, 
continued for several weeks, producing in the subjects of 
them a deep acquaintance with their own hearts. 

Dr. Griffin's 4 'ruling passion" plainly was, love to 
the cause of Christ, exhibited in earnest endeavors to 
promote revivals of religion, purity of Scripture doctrine, 
and* the cause of Christian missions. Nothing animated 
8 



122 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

him more than hearing of revivals, and witnessing their 
purity and progress. Referring to the extensive revivals 
in Litchfield County, and other parts of Connecticut in 
1816, he says : " God, my dear brother, has greatly 
blessed you and your most favored county. I rejoice, as 
much as my poor cold heart can, in all the mercy and 
truth with which he has visited you. May his work go 
on until the whole land and world is filled with his 
glory." 

Every indication of the reviving presence of the Holy 
Spirit in Boston, gladdened his heart. In a letter dated. 
Boston, March 23, 1812, he says : " Through the great 
mercy of God we begin to be encouraged even in this 
wicked town. For the last six or eight weeks, I have 
often thought that appearances were much as they were 
when you were at Newark, six months before the revival 
commenced, [April, 1807.] For the last four weeks, I 
have been so much encouraged as to institute a weekly 
conference for persons under serious impressions. We 
have had four meetings, at which twenty different persons 
of that description, have attended. The waters of the 
sanctuary seem slowly but constantly to rise. Pray for 
us, and help us to bless God for all his mercies." 

I have been struck with the contrast between the 
spirit of these extracts, and that which produced what, 
in the " Reminiscences," you speak of as " a symbolic 
act of derision." Under another date, December 27th, 
1813, Dr. Griffin says : " You can have no ade- 
quate sense of the depravity and hardness of this great 
town. The opposition which we have to encounter, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 123 



is great beyond conception. ' We have no might against 
this great company that cometh against us, neither know 
we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. , Our motto 
is, 'Faint yet pursuing.' "We get along slowly. We 
received, at the sacrament in September, twelve from the 
world." Happy would it be for this apostate world, 
were there many more such minds thus exhausting their 
energies in efforts to promote the cause of truth, of revi- 
vals, and of missions. 

It may be truly said that the triumph of divine grace, 
in the history of Dr. Griffin, was remarkable. A mind 
possessing such endowments, so vigorous, so determined, 
so susceptible of intense feeling, having such powers of 
persuasion, lodged in such a giant body, and naturally as 
depraved as other men ; had it been left unrestrained 
by moral principle and renovating grace, might have 
been gigantic in wickedness. There is a pleasant anec- 
dote which seems to indicate something of what he 
thought of himself in this respect. On a certain occa- 
sion, when in the company of the Rev. Messrs. Mills 
and Hallock, he said, "Brother Mills, here is brother 
Hallock, he would have been a decent sort of a man 
without grace, but you and I should have been proper 
devils." 

To those who have been intimately acquainted with his 
history, it is a matter of devout praise to Grod, that he 
raised up such a man, and gave him such success in his 
ministerial and other labors. It is delightful to follow 
him through his course to the last, and contemplate the 
triumphant manner in which he was borne through the 



124 RECOLLECTIONS OP BR. GRIFFIN. 

conflict with the "last enemy;" and then to think of 
his happy re-union with Mills, Gillett, Hallock, and 
others of his associates in the ministry who had gone 
before him, and with the multitudes of his spiritual chil- 
dren, and see them together, uniting with all the redeemed 
and with the whole angelic throng, " Saying, with a loud 
voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain," &c. May 
Christ's ministers who occupy the places of the fathers, 
possess his spirit of devotion to the cause of Zion, and 
have occasion to rejoice in still greater success in their 
ministry than that with which he was blessed. 

F. M. 

What Mr. Marsh above relates, respecting Dr. Griffin's 
exercises in preaching the sermon on Waiting only on 
God, corresponds with our memory of his own account of 
it. And the sermon on that text, made such an impres- 
sion on our mind, from a hearing of it many years after 
it was prepared, that we were sure that we had often 
read it among his printed sermons. But our astonish- 
ment was great when we searched and found it not among 
them. When he was illustrating his views of the prayer 
of faith, he introduced that subdued state of feeling, 
and that submission which left the question to be settled 
in heaven, as one element of the prayer of faith. 

During the discussions about new revival measures, 
between twenty and thirty years ago, in which he took so 
deep an interest, the prayer of faith was much discussed. 
He thought much injury was done by erroneous views 
taken of the subject, and he took great pains to correct 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 125 



the prevalent errors. And as that subject is vitally im- 
portant, it may be well here to give in brief the views of 
it entertained by one, whose labors in revivals had found 
so much success. We will give them in as brief a form 
as we can, and be intelligible. 

Believers are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who sits 
in that temple, praying for them. And no wonder that 
God hears prayer, since it is the Holy Ghost that prays. 
And what an awful place is the Christian's closet. The 
whole Trinity are about him r every time he kneels. 
There is the Spirit praying to the Father, through the 
Son. 

But there are many prayers offered for the Spirit, in 
which God sees some good, which have not the higher 
qualities of the prayer of faith. What then are these 
qualities ? They are first, an earnest desire, something 
more than a mere longing for revival ; a desire that 
almost breaks the heart, a desire which swallows up every 
other desire, that rests immovably upon one's heart, and 
goes with him from morning till night, the last to press 
him when he sinks to sleep, and the first to meet him 
when he opens his eyes. 

Connected with this is submission. The man of faith 
does not set up the interest of the dearest object against 
the interest of God. While his very soul goes out in 
pantings after the good in view, his supreme wish is, 
that the Infinite mind may dispose of every event. 
Though his heart is ready to burst with desire, he 
would not for worlds take the decision out of God's 
hands. 



126 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



Connected with this is dependence — not a mere assent 
of the understanding, that the power is all of God, 
but such a sense as accompanies a soul-consuming desire, 
and settles into the heart as a great reality ; such a sense 
as one would have if shut up in hell, and looking to God 
to remove the bolts and bars. It is a deep felt reality, 
that no other agent in the universe can lift a pall or a 
napkin from the dead. The man goes forth with an eye 
uplifted to heaven, fixed as marble, saying as he goes, 
" My soul, wait thou only, only, only upon God, for my 
expectation is from him." He casts himself at the feet 
of God, resting every issue on him, and saying, if thou 
wilt thou canst. 

In illustrating this, Dr. Griffin thus described his own 
experience: "I knew a preacher who. under such a 
sense, scarcely looked at his audience during the whole 
service, and. cared not whether they were asleep or awake, 
feeling that the question of revival did not lie between 
him and them ; and glorious effects followed the exercises 
of that day." This is to lay the salvation of friends, of 
a world, over on God,, and commit it to him without one 
dissenting feeling, through all the soul. 

But with this sense of dependence, one cannot sit still ; 
he is as earnest to get at the consciences of men, as 
though he could do everything himself. He goes again 
and again where his concentrated anxieties lead him, to 
see what has come of his exhortations and prayers, and 
watches every symptom of the moving bones. He 
does all, because he believes that his Master orders him 
to the work. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 127 

And witbal he has a deep humility ; he trembles, lest 
his mountains of guilt should obstruct the way of the 
Most High. The sense of his backslidings weighs him 
down. He loves to repent, and feels it a luxury to 
grieve. If he be a parent, taking an attitude to put 
forth all his strength in agony for his children, he is 
forced to say, with tears, " Although my house be not 
so with God." So he is just prepared, if God hears his 
prayer, to give God all the glory, with wonder, love and 
gratitude. 

It is the prayer of faith. But what is faith ? It is a 
belief of God's testimony. It is a belief of nothing 
which is not found on the sacred page. It is not a belief 
that George, who is sick, will live, or that William will 
be saved. It is not a belief, that a revival of religion 
will come at Boston in 1860 ; for neither Boston nor 
1860 is found on the inspired page. It is not a belief 
that my prayer in particular will be answered. But it is 
an open view of that glorious truth, set forth on the field 
of light. " How much more shall your heavenly Father 
give his holy spirit to them that ask him." It is a great 
thing to wake up in the presence of God, and find him 
in the midst of his family, with all the Father's heart, 
and more ready to give his holy Spirit, than parents are 
to give bread to their children. This is no ordinary 
experience, even in the church of God. It introduces 
the Christian himself into a new world, or into one 
which he has seldom seen. He sees sincerity and truth 
stamped on the promise of God. He believes it as 
firmly as he believes his own existence. He sees it as 



128 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



clearly as he sees the sun at noon. He would risk a 
million of souls on its truths. He knows that if he does 
not succeed, it is because he does not offer the prayer of 
faith, and after he has heaved the strong desire, and 
grasped the throne with both his hands for weeks, he 
arrives at the conclusion, If this is not prayer, and in 
some measure the prayer of Penuel, I never prayed. 
Then he comes to the settled conclusion, If all the ob- 
jects of my solicitude go down, I go down with them 
without regeneration. So strong is his impression that the 
promise is true, and that the prayer of faith will not be 
turned away. 

Faith in the promise is not a belief that my prayer in 
particular will be answered, for my prayer is not named 
in the promise. The stipulation is to give the blessing to 
me, if I offer the prayer of faith. I must first be con- 
conscious that I do pray in faith, before I can have any 
evidence that I shall receive the blessing. 

There is a theory of faith widely different from this. 
It is, that we are to drop right clown upon the confidence 
at first, that we shall have the things that we ask for. 
Then either the promise is absolute, so that we shall have 
the blessing whether we ask or not, or the faith rests on 
nothing, and is presumption. 

Perseverance also belongs to the prayer of faith. 
That is not a mere continuance in prayer, or a resolution 
to continue, but a holding of God to his word, deter- 
mined to continue at his feet till the blessing comes. 
This ground could not be taken without faith. It is a 
laying hold of unchangeable truth, and refusing to let it 



"RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



129 



go. The suppliant discovers that the promise is infalli- 
ble, as the truth of God. He sees that he may take 
hold of it, and draw the blessing clown, and that he may 
keep hold till the blessing comes. He grasps it with 
both his hands, and says, Here I plant myself down, and 
on this spot I receive the blessing or die. I risk every 
thing on this foundation, and if this will not sustain me, 
let us all sink together. 

Connected with this, there must be an absorbing desire' 
for the glory of God: A man has a right to bring a 
personal or social interest to God, with no other limit 
but submission. When I read the accounts of the pub- 
lican and the father of the lunatic, I see nothing but the 
bringing of a personal or social interest to God, with 
faith and love, and no doubt submission. I see no evi- 
dence that their minds were taken up in considering how 
God would be honored in their relief, and they certainly 
were accepted. I dare not therefore say, that no prayer 
is answered, which is not marked with this characteristic. 
Yet I think that the signal success which stamps the 
broad seal of approbation on believing and persevering 
prayer, is not to be expected, till we have got beyond 
personal and social interests, to an all-absorbing desire for 
the glory of God. 

Such is a condensed statement of his views of this sub- 
ject, which he gave - about the time when he had that 
struggle in his own mind, touching the conversion of his 
own children, which is described in another chapter. It 
is, in other words, a statement of what he conceived to 
be his own experience in that case ; and we know not 



1 

130 RECOLLECTIONS OF I>R. GRIFFIN. 

where to find a more clear and Scriptural representation 
of the subject of the prayer of faith. 

We now again recur to Mr. Marsh's recollections. 

Winchester Centre, March 6, 1855. 
Rev. Dk. Cooke. Dear Sir: — I do not know 
whether anything in the present communication will be of 
use to you, unless it may afford some gratification to see 
certain things which you already know, exhibited under 
different aspects from those in which they have been 
before seen. 

I was pleasantly impressed and interested by what he 
once said respecting Samuel J. Mills' coming to Newark, 
with the request that he might be received into his fam- 
ily for a season, to study theology. Out of respect to 
his old friend, Mr. Mills' father, he was received into the 
family. But it presently appeared that the chief object - 
of young Mills was not the study of theology, for he 
soon proposed the subject of a national Bible Society, 
and some other great and important religious societies. 
He solicited Dr. Griffin to correspond with Dr. Boudinot 
and other men of eminence, to put forward these objects. 
" I found," said he pleasantly, " that the rogue had not 
the design to study theology." His chief aim was to 
make known his plans, and have them come before 'the 
world by the pen and influence of Dr. Griffin and other 
distinguished men. 

In conversation on subjects which related to himself, 
or his history, Dr. Griffin has appeared to keep promi- 
nently in view the agency of divine Providence. His 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 131 



manner has appeared to be far removed from taking 
honor to himself, and to indicate an humble and govern- 
ing regard to the glory of God. This was the case when 
in 1818, he spoke of the giving np, in two churches 
where he had labored, of the " half-way covenant." So 
it was when speaking of the occasion and circumstances 
of his preaching and publishing " Park Street Lectures,' ' 
and of the reasons of his writing his book on the 
' ' Atonement." " If I bad not gone to Boston, I 
should not have written Park Street Lectures." " If I 
had not returned to Newark, I should not have written 
on the Atonement." He spoke with much interest of the 
providential arrangements which led him to Williams- 
town. 

However much his hearers, at New Hartford, admired 
him as a preacher, they often left the house of God much 
more affected with the truth than with the eloquence of 
the speaker. This was apparent from the appearance 
and remarks of hearers as they were returning home. 
Instead of extolling the preacher, they seemed affected 
with the weight of the truths they had heard, speaking 
of the solemnity of the subject, and observing to this 
effect : " What will become of us if we reject such truths 
as these ? " 

Another thing that used to strike me forcibly, was the 
change of his mode of speaking, subsequently to his 
leaving New Hartford. While there, his speaking was 
characterized by the utmost simplicity. His manner was 
perfectly free and natural, leaving the impression, at least 
on my own mind, that in preaching he did not think of 



132 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



himself, so earnest and absorbed was he in his subject. 
But after he had been absent a few years, and occasion- 
ally returned and preached to his former people, his man- 
ner of speaking was more artificial, or studied, as 
apparently to border on what is stately. As to these 
impressions, I happen to know that I am not alone. 

There was also some change in his style of writing. 
After going to Newark there was less indulgence of the 
imagination. He evidently subjected this to more severe 
restraint, so that I often thought he put on the curb too 
much. Nearly allied to this was his rule of reviewing 
sermons. Always review your sermons, he would say, 
with pen in hand. Don't be afraid of blotting and 
erasing ; strike out every unnecessary word. Do as the 
woman does when she hetchels flax ; then with a very 
significant action, as though the hetchel lay on its side 
with the teeth pointing toward him all filled with tow, 
spreading his fingers as though he would thrust them 
between the teeth, he said, just take off the tow, and 
and leave the points bare. 

When in. New Hartford, he used often to visit Deacon 
Pitkin, an eminently pious man, whom the Doctor greatly 
loved. Deacon P. was a prosperous farmer, abounded in 
grain of various kinds, and kept large flocks of doves. 
On one of my visits at Newark he said to me, " When I 
lived in New Hartford I used to go to Deacon Pitkin's, 
and loved to see the doves, and think that there was one 
spot in creation that sin had not touched ; till one day 
two of them fell to fighting cruelly. Ah, said I, you are 
all gone." 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 183 



[A part of this letter, applicable to another topic, is 
transferred to another place.] 

There were other occasions on which Dr. Griffin's 
conversation and sayings were very interesting and useful 
to me, but which cannot be related so as to excite any 
particular interest in others, because the circumstances, 
etc., cannot be concisely told, and because some of them 
are given in his Memoir. 

I will add an anecdote which was related to me by Dr. 
McEwen, of New London. It occurred on the occasion 
of the meeting of the General Association of Congrega- 
tionalists in that place. Dr. Griffin was a delegate to 
that body from the Presbyterian Church, and preached 
before it. The Rev. Roswell K. Swan, then of Norwalk, 
since dead, returning to his quarters remarked, "We 
have had one of the sons of Anak to preach to-day, and 
his voice was greater than his stature, and his heart was 
greater than his voice, and his subject greater than his 
heart." 

Your resolution to recast and publish the Reminis- 
cences of Dr. Griffin, not only strikes me agreeably, but 
ds manifestly wise as a means to a highly valuable end. 
Their publication in a permanent form, can hardly fail of 
bringing Dr. Griffin and his writings into more public 
notice, and of extending the knowledge and usefulness of 
one of the greatest and best men of his age. Taking 
into view his person, endowments, character, reputation 
as a preacher, and the soundness of his theology, with 
his ardent zeal in the cause of revivals and of missions, 
it would seem that any means of making him and his 



134 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



works more extensively and better known will greatly 
subserve the cause of the Redeemer whom he so ardently 
loved and earnestly served. 

I remain affectionately yours, 

Frederick Marsh. 

Another letter from the same. 

Dear Sir: — 

It was characteristic of Dr. Griffin to bestow particular 
attention upon children, both in families and schools. 
When visiting in families, he would call children to him, 
treat them so kindly, and so adapt his remarks to their 
capacity, as greatly to interest their feelings. He was 
remarkable for saying such things and in such a way as 
to fix them in the minds of those who heard him. I 
recollect how he conversed in my father's family in his 
first visit there after he came into town. Among other 
things, he spoke of the safety of the righteous. I was 
struck with one of his illustrations, while speaking of the 
care which God takes of his people, when he remarked 
that " they were as safe from the power of their enemies 
as though they were enclosed in a mountain of brass." 
Visiting my parents when a little son was apparently at 
the point of death, he spoke to them of the right, and of 
the goodness of God in sending afflictions^ and taking 
away children. " If" said he, 11 you saw your little 
child playing with a bright and sharp penknife, or 
other dangerous instrument, you would take it away 
lest he should wound himself with it." 

Dr. Griffin manifested great interest in common 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



135 



schools," and labored to promote their moral and religious 
as well as their literary improvement. I have a half 
sheet closely written on one side by him, containing nine 
specifications or rules relative to the conduct of school 
teachers. These regulations respected the qualifications 
of teachers, their religious belief, their duty of praying 
at least once a day in the school, teaching the shorter 
Catechism twice a week, carefully inspecting " the man- 
ners and address of the children," etc. His practice was 
to call often at the school near his residence, with a view 
to their literary and religious benefit. On leaving the 
school, he would say a few words to the pupils, like 
these : " My dear children, I want to have you all love 
Christ and become Christians." Ifc has been remarked 
by one who belonged to that school that almost all of those 
pupils became professors of religion. The paper to which 
I have alluded, as a historical document, is a curiosity. It 
was drawn up by Dr. Griffin as Chairman of the Board 
of " School Inspectors," under a then recent law of the 
State relative to schools. It is dated Dec. 18, 1798. 

During the progress of the revival in New Hartford, in 
the winter of '99, an evening conference, where the 
attendance had often been so large as to render it neces- 
sary to adjourn to the meeting house, was not so full as 
usual. This struck Dr. Griffin as an indication that the 
revival was declining, and he seemed much distressed. 
He said, if the work were not on the decline, they should 
have had to go to the meeting house. Such were his 
feelings that, he said it almost seemed as though soul 
and body would separate. Returning home that evening, 



136 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



he requested a few of the young converts who were pass- 
ing that way, to go in with hirn. Among those who went 
in was a young man then trembling with distress, to 
whom Dr. G. said, " I think it likely I shall see you on 
the left hand." Presently some one knocked. (Instead 
of opening the door, the custom then was to bid them 
come in.) " Come in," said the Doctor, " if you want 
to talk about religion ; if you do not, I don't want to 
see you." This was related to me a few days since, 
by a pious lady who was one of that little company then 
present. 

In the spring of 1807, while I was spending a few 
weeks in the family of Dr. Griffin, at Newark, a woman 
died leaving an only daughter, and some eight or nine 
hundred dollars of property to her. The husband of this 
woman, by a second marriage — a large, fine looking 
man, having apparently the habits of a gentleman — 
lived in New York. After the decease of his wife, he 
came to Newark to take possession of the property which 
she had left, and which belonged to that orphan daughter. 
Some gentlemen in New York, having knowledge of 
the matter, wrote to Dr. Griffin informing him of the 
designs of that step-father, and requested him to befriend 
the young lady, and take measures to prevent the father- 
in-law from depriving her of what her mother had left to 
her. Dr. Griffin accordingly consulted an attorney, and 
commenced a process for securing to the motherless 
daughter what belonged to her. Each party was resolute 
in his efforts to effect his purpose. For about a week, 
the Doctor occupied about two hours of each morning 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 137 

abroad, in prosecuting that business. When matters 
were fully arranged, he gave the young lady a place in 
his own family, till the affair should be settled, once- or 
twice remarking with emotion, " 0, the luxury of doing 
good !" At length, becoming impatient of such unrighteous 
and cruel conduct, and of such perverse persistency in 
the father-in-law, Dr. Griffin, while in conversation with 
him one morning, raised and stretched forth his long and 
brawny arm, and said to him in a tone of defiance, " Sir, 
move another step in this business, and I will pursue you 
to the very end of the law." The man quailed, gave up 
his object, and the young lady was put in possession of 
her property. The next morning, while we were at 
breakfast, that father-in-law called at Dr. Griffin's, and 
very politely inquired of him if he would take his little 
son into his family, who was desirous of attending the 
academy of the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge. After he had 
left, " Now," said Dr. Griffin, " this is very strange. I 
have been the means, in these few days, of taking from 
him eight or nine hundred dollars and securing it to this 
young lady, and now he comes and asks me to take his 
son into my family to board ! " 

Few men have been capable of more undivided and 
intense mental application than was Dr. Griffin. Spend- 
ing a few days in his family in May, 1818, when he was 
occupied on his work on the Atonement, he one 
day handed me two sermons to read. One was preach- 
ed by Dr. Scott, the commentator, and the other by 
Dr. Chalmers. They were both of them preached on the 
occasion of the death of the Princess Charlotte, and 
9 



138 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



had been sent to him by Samuel J. Mills, when in Lon- 
don on his way to Africa. Afterwards he asked me 
about those sermons, remarking that he had not read 
them, except a few sentences on the first page of Dr.* 
Chalmers', which, said he, gave me more exalted views 
of Dr. C. than I had ever before had of him, for in the 
very first sentence I saw he aimed at the conscience. 
He farther remarked nearly in the following words : " You 
must think that I have been deeply engaged in my work 
on the Atonement, when two such sermons as these have 
lain on my desk for weeks, and I have not found time to 
read them." ' F. M. 

Dr. Griffin's remark here made, respecting Dr. Chal- 
mers, is full of instruction. But that we may be better 
able to take its force, we will quote the sentence alluded 
to in Dr. Chalmers' sermon. The text of the sermon 
was, " For when thy judgments are in the earth, the 
inhabitants thereof will learn righteousness." The first 
sentence of the sermon was, " I am sorry that I shall 
not be able to extend the application of this text, beyond 
its more direct and immediate bearing on that event, on 
which we are now met to mingle our regrets, our sensi- 
bilities and our prayers ; that occupied as we all are with 
the mournful circumstance, that has bereft our country of 
one of its brightest anticipations, I shall not be able to 
clear my way to the accomplishment of what is strictly 
speaking the congregational object of an address from 
the pulpit, which ought, in every possible case, to be an 
address to the conscience" 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 139 



Dr. Griffin could not have been ignorant of the fame 
of Dr. Chalmers, as a splendid preacher ; and he could 
not have failed to have formed a high estimate of his 
genius. But in this sentence, he discovered that his 
genius was the servant and not the master, the means and 
not the end of his ministry. And hence he got a more 
exalted view of Chalmers. When he discovered that 
Chalmers' grand aim was, to reach the conscience, he saw 
that in him, that was more to be admired, than all splen- 
dor of genius without it. Richly as Chalmers wag 
endowed with the gifts of eloquence, filling the world 
with his fame, his crowning excellence was that all his 
eloquence had some aim to the hearer's conscience. Here 
Griffin, one of the most eloquent and successful preachers 
that the country ever produced, shows his sense of what 
constitutes the highest attainment in pulpit eloquence. 
And in these two quotations united we have the united 
testimony of two preachers of the first rank, to the effect 
that the highest accomplishment of pulpit eloquence, is a 
power exerted on the conscience. \ 

Both these preachers, affluent as they were in other 
elements of good speaking, made this the crowning excel- 
lence ; and so they stand forth as examples to all preach- 
ers, showing what is the highest aim of the preacher. 
There is not a little of effort to attain a high point of 
excellence in preaching. But in too many instances, it is 
left out of the account that a sermon is good only as it is 
adapted to work on the conscience — that that is the good 
sermon, that does the good. 

We have sometimes listened to sermons that were 



140 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFEIN. 



splendid productions, saving that they were without aims 
to reach the conscience. In philosophical analysis and 
synthesis, in originality and beauty of conception, in 
breadth and depth of thought, and in all rhetorical qual- 
ities, they were splendid ; and yet, as sermons they were 
failures. One might sit under such exhibitions for a 
month, without a twinge of conscience, except it were for 
the waste of time in the mere gratification of taste upon 
divine themes. Too great a proportion of the labor 
spent, to produce splendid sermons, is spent under a sad 
misapprehension of what constitutes an excellent sermon. 
A rich intellectual entertainment is sought, instead of a 
discourse full of the Holy Ghost, instead of " thoughts 
that breathe and words that burn" on the conscience. 
The speaker is commendably anxious to make his pulpit 
attractive, and to draw in hearers by the commanding 
excellence of his discourses. But he leaves out of view 
that element which would give quickening to all his other 
forces, and that which should be his main reliance to fix a 
grasp on the public mind. He distrusts the spiritual and 
intrinsic energy of God's truth, and relies wholly on the 
dress with which he may set it forth. He forgets that by 
not walking in craftiness, and not handling the word of 
God deceitfully, but by manifestation of truth, commend- 
ing himself to every man's conscience in the sight of 
God, his messages become a ministration of the Spirit — 
not of the letter which killeth, but of the Spirit which 
giveth life. Relying on the attractions of rhetorical art, 
rather than on the naked force of truth addressed to the 
conscience, and set home by the Spirit of God, he 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 141 



relinquishes all the divine force that attaches to the Gos- 
pel. He throws away that which is the power of God 
unto salvation, and seeks to do his work simply by show- 
ing the artistic beauty of his discourse. He conies down 
from the high office of an ambassador of Christ, to that 
of a mere exhibiter of a panorama, or some other 
show. 

There are two ways of handling divine truth. The 
one uses it as a mere subject of discourse, the mere theme 
of a beautiful and splendid oration, the mere block of 
marble on which the sculptor displays his art. The other 
uses it as a sharp threshing instrument haying teeth, to 
produce the broken and contrite heart. Let one propose 
to himself the true end of preaching — not the charming 
of his hearers by the beauty of his discourses, not the 
convincing of them that he is a splendid preacher, but 
the awakening in their minds of views and feelings 
answering to the truths which he utters ; then let him 
employ whatever arts of eloquence, whatever powers of 
persuasion, whatever resources of learning, whatever 
impulses of genius, may pertain to him, to secure this 
single end. Then his splendid gifts, if he has them, 
assume a new lustre from the heavenly spirit and aim of 
their application. In such preaching, the wisdom of God 
and the power of God come forth. Such a ministry is in 
the highest degree eloquent, speaking as of the ability 
which God giveth, that God in all things may be 
glorified. 



142 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



LETTER FROM REV. MR. BRIGHAM. 

Rev. Dr. Cooke. Dear Sir: — In compliance with 
your request to add from my memory something to your 
recollections of Dr. Griffin, I have attempted to recall 
some of the occurrences which took place during my con- 
nection with Williams College, under his presidency. 
There are some things that made so deep an impression on 
my mind, that the lapse of time has not effaced them. 
But I cannot tell of how much service they will be to you. 
Some things, in his opening the way of salvation, had 
more of novelty and impressiveness to me, doubtless from 
the fact of my early education having been in a very dif- 
ferent faith — if faith it could be called — and his was 
the first religious instruction which I enjoyed after I had 
professed my belief in Christ. Under these circumstan- 
ces, his original and striking illustrations of the way of 
salvation, made a strong impression on my mind. 

It was very manifest that the cause of Christ was up- 
permost in his mind, in all his intercourse with the stu- 
dents. So apparent was this, that most of those who 
were not Christians, and who were even opposed to the 
truths which he preached, would yet acknowledge that he 
was in earnest and sincere in his own belief. I recollect 

a strong instance in point. Mr. W , under whose 

instruction I had my preparation for college, and who had 
graduated at Williams College under Dr. Griffin, was a 
decided Unitarian, and afterwards became, a Unitarian 
preacher. He advised me to go to Williams College ; 
and gave as his reasons, that Dr. Griffin, the President, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



143 



felt a deep interest for those whose views accorded with 
his own, and especially for those who were preparing for 
the ministry. Then he added, that he is an excellent^ 
man, and is sincere in his belief. 

A few days after I entered college, Dr. G. sent for me 
and F., who entered when I did, and who was to occupy 
the same room with me. We were no sooner introduced 
into his study, than he commenced speaking to us some- 
thing like this : " You are, I understand, members of the 
church of Christ, and you have in view the work of the 
ministry. We expect, therefore, that you will be exam- 
ples to others in punctuality, in all your studios and duties 
as members of college. We shall expect you to choose 
pious students for your associates. There is now some 
special interest in college, and I hope you will enter into 
the spirit of the work, with others." While hearing these 
remarks, my friend sat with his chair tipped back, so as to 
stand on its hind feet only. This posture of his offended 
the doctor's sense of propriety, and created an occasion 
for a kindly correction. He rose and placed his hand 
upon my friend, and said with a smile, " You have come 
hither, young gentlemen, to learn ; and you will not be 
displeased when you are corrected. If you were a little 
further west, you would be told that your chair was made 
to stand on all fours." 

His watchful regard for the welfare of the students, 
appeared in his observations made on the results of asso- 
ciations which they formed among themselves. He said, 
" I have seldom ever known the instance in which a pro- 
fessor of religion occupied the same room in college with 



144 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



one who was not a Christian, without an apparent change 
in one or the other before the year closed. Either the 
professor of religion would become apparently assimilated 
to the other, or the other would become a Christian, or at 
least become more seriously inclined. At one time, he 
came to my room to inform me and my room mate that 
that was the room which was occupied by Samuel J. Mills 
and Gordon Hall, at the time when the latter was con- 
verted. He told one incident respecting them. Mills 
had resolved to spend the time, when Hall was out of the 
room, in praying for his conversion. On one occasion, 
when Hall returned to the room after Mills had been 
praying for him, he was suddenly overcome with a sense 
of his sins, and felt that God had come in his power, and 
was present in that room. 

In times of special interest in religion, there was a re- 
markable power in Dr. Griffin's sermons, and the results 
were usually marked and manifest. Then he was wont 
to indulge in sudden turns of thought, which were some- 
times really overwhelming. Once, when preaching under 
circumstances and in a strain of more than usual solem- 
nity, and while the congregation was manifestly under a 
deep impression, while he was depicting the condition of 
those who had rejected the Gospel of the grace of God, he 
seemed for a moment to forget himself, and looked over 
the audience, and said, " Sinners who perish under the 
light of the Gospel, will fall to such a depth in the bot- 
tomless pit, that they will look up to Sodom and Gomor- 
rah as to some sublime heights. " One of the students 
remarked, that he never heard such a description of mis- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 145 



ery before — that he never before that moment saw so far 
into the bottomless pit. Preaching one evening in the 
chapel, with an eye on those who could not see the guilt 
involved in rejecting Christ, — because they were depen- 
dent on the mercy of God for every right feeling and 
action, he showed that their obligation to love and serve 
God was based on their possession of the rational and 
moral faculties, and their capacities and means of the 
knowledge of God. And he made it clear that the re- 
quirement was as reasonable as though the thing required 
was merely to walk across the floor — that there was 
nothing in the way but an evil heart, for which sinners 
were wholly to blame, if there was any blame in the uni- 
verse — that they alone had created the necessity for God 
to conquer them. That presentation of the subject car- 
ried conviction to several of the students^ who from that 
time were convinced of their error, and afterwards em- 
braced the truth. Just before he preached this sermon, 
a fact occurred which probably gave occasion to it. Some 
of the professed infidels among the students, selected one 
of their number to go to Dr. Griffin, with a question put 
in this form — "I cannot believe in Christ or in the 
Scriptures. I am an infidel. And what must I, and 
those who believe with me do ? You tell us that we are 
entirely dependent on God for salvation, and we are con- 
scious that we cannot believe ? " He at once replied, 
" Get a new heart, and then you will love God, and be- 
lieve, and find no difficulty in obeying the commands of 
Christ. Obey the command to make to yourself a new 
heart and a right spirit, and you will have a right belief. 



146 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



I have seen this tried in a thousand instances without 
failing in one." This student afterwards said to me, "I 
could make no reply. I was silenced at once, and in a 
way that I had not thought of. I left the President as 
soon as I could, to tell those who sent me, and who were 
waiting to hear my report, that they had better go and 
make the inquiry for themselves." This student re- 
nounced his infidelity, if he did not become a Chris- 
tian. 

The earnestness of Dr. Griffin's mind in his plans and 
efforts for promoting revivals of religion in college^ showed 
his deep interest in the spiritual welfare of the students. 
His mind was ever awake to improve any incident and 
opportunity to fix and deej)en an impression, especially 
when there were any indications or hopes of a revival. 

Once at evening prayers, in the chapel, he read the 
chapter containing Abram's intercession for Sodom ; 
and when he came to the words, " The Lord went his 
way, as soon as he had left communing with Abram." 

At this point he paused, and looking upward, ex- 
claimed — " Abram, Abram, if thou haclst continued 
to pray, Sodom would have been saved." It is not pos- 
sible for me to describe the effect of this. It was a time, 
when every humble heart was ready to take an impres- 
sion from the truth. And this truth, that we should 
never cease praying in faith for the special blessing, 
which God seems ready to bestow, then took a deep im- 
pression on many hearts. That single effort of his mind 
seemed to give a new impulse to the revival which was 
then in progress. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN". 147 



During one of the interesting seasons, which occurred 
while I was in college, there was an occurrence in the 
neighborhood, which excited great interest both in the col- 
lege, and in the town, in relation to Dr. Whitman, who 
had lived to an advanced age, in a devotedly religious 
family, and in intimate association with a religious circle 
of friends, embracing the faculty of the college, and in 
constant attendance on religious meetings, out of regard 
,to the feelings of his friends, and yet all the while, in 
avowed possession of infidel views. One evening, when 
some of the students were engaged in a prayer meeting, 
Dr. Griffin came into the room and appeared deeply 
affected. He said, " I heard that you had a prayer meet- 
ing at this hour; I did not come to intrude upon your 
time ; but I came to tell you that I have seen the power 
of God to day. " He then paused a moment, apparently 
much affected, in view of what he was about to say — 
then he added, " The Lord is in William stown, I was 
sent for, to go to Dr. Whitman's, and when I entered the 
room, there sat Dr. Whitman, that aged sinner, for whose 
salvation, his wife had spent one hour each day, for 
seventeen years, to pray especially for his conversion. I 
could scarcely believe my own eyes. He was so deeply 
convinced of his guilt and misery, that he cried for mercy. 
His chair shook under him. It is the Lord's doings. I 
came to this prayer meeting to ask you to pray for him, 
at this critical moment. If he grieves the Spirit now, he 
is lost forever. I request you to say nothing about it 
now, till we see more what the result will be — but pray 
that the Lord would come into the college with power.' ' 



148 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



The views which he then presented, as to the nature of 
prayer, connected with that remarkable instance of the 
power of persevering intercession, were new to me ; and 
made a deep impression on my own mind ; and I was led 
to turn them to account, in a matter which lay near my 
own heart. For my father was then without Christ, and 
settled in views opposed to evangelical truth. The fact, 
that one had prayed for seventeen years in this manner, 
and had then prevailed, gave me a new idea of prayer, 
and I at once resolved to pursue a similar course, in in- 
tercession for my father's conversion, and not to cease, till 
I saw the prayer answered. This I did, and in less than 
two years, was permitted to rejoice in the accomplishment 
of my desires. 

At another time he heard that some of the students 
were accustomed to hold a prayer meeting immediately 
after his evening lecture, which he continued during the 
revival in college. So, one evening, after his lecture, 
and after the students had become engaged in their nieet- 
ing, he came with a still and unobserved step to the door, 
where we were assembled, and entered the room, while 
we were in the act of prayer, so that few, if any, knew 
that he was present, till we rose from our knees. It was 
sometimes our custom, in such meetings, to have several 
prayers, by different individuals, leading in succession, 
before we rose. So it was then ; and he heard several 
prayers of the students, without their being aware of his 
presence, and so without suffering embarrassment from 
it, as they would if they had known that he was there. 
As soon as the succession of prayers ceased, he spoke and 



"RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 149 

said that his object in coming into the meeting, was to see 
what were the indications of the special presence of God 
in the college ; and to see what reason there was to hope, 
that his preaching would be followed with a blessing. He 
then himself led us in prayer, and at his request several 
of the students followed him. But as soon as the hour 
had expired, he wished to close the meeting and said, " I 
wish you to retain the feeling which you have, and not to 
grieve the Spirit • and that without any interruption of 
your college duties. While you pray fervently, you must 
study earnestly. For while the Lord is teaching you 
how to pray, he is giving you at the same time an oppor- 
tunity to prepare yourselves for future usefulness. As 
you must rise early, let all now be left quietly in the 
hands of sovereign mercy. 

He was no friend of fanaticism. He opposed all the 
forms of man-made revivals, all methods of getting up 
revivals by human artifice, operating on the passions, but 
leaving the heart and conscience untouched. Two or 
three of the students were in a habit of neglecting their 
studies, on the plea, that they had attended religious meet- 
ings, and that their feelings were so deeply involved, and 
their desire for the salvation of others was so intense, 
that they could not confine their minds to study. Upon 
this he remarked, that they had taken a course that was 
displeasing to God, and he would have them see their fol- 
ly. Afterwards the facts showed the correctness of what 
he said. It was not long before the history of those stu- 
dents proved a warning to the rest ; confirming the injunc- 
tion, " Obey them that have the rule over you in the 
Lord." 



150 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

The evening of the first Monday of March 1831, was 
memorable. Then several students at the monthly con- 
cert for prayer, were awakened, and afterwards hopefully 
converted, who had been foremost in disseminating skep- 
tical opinions. After this, erroneous views began to pre- 
vail, on the subject of the prayer of faith. Because sev- 
eral had been hopefully converted, for whom prayer had 
been especially offered, some inferred, that in all cases we 
should have the particular thing for which we asked ; and 
that if we did not attain it, we were to conclude that our 
prayer was not offered in faith. Dr Griffin himself met 
this error. He did it both in a sermon, in conference 
meetings, and in his lectures before his class. Among 
other illustrations of his views, I remember this — " It is 
nowhere said in the bible, that this or that person will be 
converted, or that there will be a revival in Williams col- 
lege, or in Boston, at ten o'clock on the Sabbath the fif- 
teenth of March. You cannot say, that you know that 
the Holy Ghost will descend, and that men will be con- 
verted at a particular time, if we have offered the prayer 
of faith for that conversion. We may say that " praying 
breath was never spent in vain that every true prayer 
will be answered ; if not in the particular thing asked, in 
the form and manner as desired, yet in some thing which 
in the view of God, is better than that thing. This was 
the impression, which his view of the subject of the pray- 
er of faith made on my own mind. 

At the time of the revival just alluded to, there was a 
great solemnity in the college. It was a day of the right 
hand of the Most High. Many interesting scenes were 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN". 151 



witnessed there in the evening above mentioned, and the 
week following, Clashing, Dutton, Hand, Noble and 
others from the two higher classes, were brought to a 
sense of their sins, and more from the other classes — 
then prayer was made without ceasing to God ; then the 
vindication of the special presence of the Holy Spirit were 
full. There was a breathless silence in our religious 
meetings; conversions were occuring daily. Some 'of the 
awakened were on the borders of despair, in view of the 
justice of God. At this time, I remember, that Dr. 
Griffin gave utterance to an expression which appears in 
some of his published works; " That the question of re- 
vivals of religion, does not lie between us and sinners, 
but is settled in heaven. We can only apply the torch to 
the tinder that the Holy Ghost has prepared." He had 
no confidence in what were called the new revival meas- 
ures. He took special pains to show the danger and in- 
jurious effects of that kind of excitement, which is caused 
by calling on awakened persons, to rise in an assembly, 
and of inviting them to come forward to show themselves, 
as awakened persons, or indeed, to take any step before 
submitting to God, that would encourage the feeling in 
them, that they had done something, that would contribute 
to their conversion, or would lay God under obligation to 
convert them. 

At the time of the revival, of which I have spoken, 
the Methodists appointed a camp meeting near the 
college, and an effort was made to enlist some of the 
pious students in this sort of measures, so much adopted 
by the Methodists. But Dr. Griffin, learning the injur- 



152 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



ious effect of such an influence on the revival in the col- 
lege, took all pains to counteract it. He was careful, 
that all meetings and religious exercises should be con- 
ducted with perfect stillness and decorum, also, in his 
preaching and in all his dealing with the awakened, he 
was careful not to flatter the sinner's sense of independ- 
ence and pride, for the sake of making him acknowledge 
his obligation to God ; and beyond most preachers, he 
succeeded, to carry both a sense of dependence on God, 
and conviction of sin, in one demonstration. 

One of the so called revival preachers had said, and 
the saying had gone abroad as a bold assertion of an im- 
portant truth, that " He could convert sinners as well as 
the Holy Ghost, if he were as eloquent as he." At this 
Dr. Griffin was shocked ; he was grieved at the dishonor 
cast on Gocl. He was roused to exert himself in his 
preaching, in his conference exercises, and conversations, 
to explode such an error. He preached a sermon expressly 
to set forth the sin involved in such a sentiment. So ex- 
treme were some who cherished these views, in their con- 
ceptions of the power and independence of man, and the 
dependence of God on man, that it had become a favorite 
notion, that God had not the power to prevent sin, where 
it existed. These views, favored by the pastor of the 
village church, were making some progress among the 
students. But Dr. Griffin set his face against them like 
a flint. He invited the pious students to his study, for 
conversation touching these errors. And those conversa- 
sions must have done much to aid their minds in discrim- 
inating, and avoiding such errors. When those errors 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 153 



were brought in upon the college, among so many young 
men preparing for the ministry, it seemed that immense 
mischief must follow. But as the minds exposed to them 
came also under Dr. Griffin's instruction respecting them, 
the result, in many instances, perhaps in most, was for 
good. They gave him an opportunity to illustrate through 
passing events, some of the most important principles. 

Providence so ordered it, that in the midst of this ex- 
citement, a minister visiting the place, from abroad, 
preached in the doctor's turn before the college and the 
village congregation, and without knowing what adapted- 
ness his subject had to the occasion, he preached on 
God's power of preventing sin — from the text — 
" Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the re- 
mainder shalt thou restrain." The sermon, touching a 
subject that was so much in agitation, created quite a sen- 
sation, and a demand for its being published. A com- 
mittee of students was chosen to see it published. They 
of course applied to Dr. Griffin for his consent; he 
readily consented, and said it was eloquent, for it was 
right to the purpose ; a common allusion of his to Camp- 
bell's definition of eloquence. He farther said, — ' * It is 
what we need at this time. Circulate it among the stu- 
dents. Circulate it ; for truth takes hold of the reason 
and conscience ; and it will aid us in removing the danger, 
that some will be corrupted by the simplicity of Christ." 
As soon as the report went abroad that the sermon was to 
be published by the request of the students, there was no 
small stir. Those opposing it, including all classes and 
characters, were a majority. But the doctor said, " Let 
10 



154 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



it be published by request of students. Those re- 
questing, embraced a majority of the pious students. It 
was printed and circulated with happy results. Coming 
at a time, when some had embraced the opposite senti- 
ments, it accomplished its work. One of the officers of 
the college had said, that the sermon was true, but there 
might be some doubt ' about the expediency of preaching 
and publishing what the people could not understand. 
To that Dr. Griffin replied — " If they do not understand 
the doctrine, that is a reason why they should hear it, and 
read it till they do understand it. But it is understood. 
The effect produced shows that it is understood. " 

There was a single sentence in the sermon that was 
used to great effect;, it was this — "If it is true, that 
God cannot control sin, and justly punish the sinner, then 
the wrath of man defies him, after he has done all he can 
do." " This," said Dr. Griffin, " reaches the point. It 
will do the work. Every one must feel, that our condition 
is hopeless, if God be not able to do all things, after the 
counsel of his own will." In a passing allusion to the 
sermon afterwards, he said he was not looking for it; nor 
before the sermon was preached, was he fully aware of 
the influence, which that error had exerted on the minds 
of some in college. And in connection with his remarks 
on that subject, he took occasion to show, that a love for 
doctrinal preaching, was a test of Christian character. 

In the true sense of the term, and in an eminent 
sense, Dr. Griffin was a revival preacher. In all seasons 
of special religious interest, all his activities were used. 
By every warranted means, he sought to rouse attention. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 155 

He hesitated not to address the imagination and the pas- 
sions with all his own fervor of imagination and passion. 
But in all eases, divine truth was the instrument of as- 
sault, and the heart and conscience were the ultimate 
points to be reached. He was willing to see the passions 
moved, so far as the sweet and awful truths of God could 
move them. Out of regard to the honor of Christ, and 
the Holy Spirit, and out of compassion to sinners he 
would say, "Let the work of God be done by God's 
own truth ; and by such means only, as he has promised 
to own and bless." 

Yours, respectfully, 

L. Beigham. 

Saugus, March 29, 1855. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



ANOTHER CRISIS IN THE COLLEGE. 

"We have seen how, in one crisis, the fact of Dr. 
Griffin's taking the Presidency of Williams College saved 
the Institution. But another crisis was to come. At 
that time, while it was assumed on all hands that the 
western part of Massachusetts could not sustain two col- 
leges, the question seemed to be, which of the two must 
die ? The college at Amherst, though it had commenced 
operations as a college, had not secured a charter from 
the Legislature ; and the hope of life for Williams Col- 
lege seemed to lie in the difficulties which stood in the 
way of the other college being chartered. The little in- 
fluence which the friends of Williams College had in the 
Legislature, was combined with the interest of the friends 
of Cambridge College against the petition for a charter. 
This petition at first met with little success ; and on the 
strength of this, the number of students in Williams Col- 
lege increased, and its prospects brightened. But perse- 
verance on the part of the friends of Amherst College, 
in following up their petition, gradually turned the scale. 
Though the opposition of the friends of Williams College 
seemed to have an honorable basis, since it was a contest 
for life, on behalf of a college which Providence had 
signally owned and honored, that of the Unitarians had 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 157 



grounds of defence less tenable. It seemed an odious 
matter for them, being in actual possession, and in wrong- 
ful possession of college endowments created originally 
for orthodox purposes, to refuse a legal existence to a new 
college, endowed by private munificence, to supply for 
the Orthodox the place of the college that they had 
wrested from them. It had the appearance of persecu- 
tion, and was making a very bad impression on the public 
mind in relation to its authors. After securing, therefore, 
the best terms which they could for themselves in the 
charter, they relinquished their opposition, and went in a 
body in favor of the petition. The charter was thus 
secured. 

This was in the winter of 1825, after Dr. Griffin had 
been connected with Williams College three years. In 
those three years the number of students had gone up 
from 48 to 120 ; a very great increase, considering the 
competition against which it had to be gained. But 
now, by the success of Amherst in obtaining a charter, a 
severe blow was experienced. It had been so often said 
that Williams College must die, if Amherst lived, that 
few were bold enough to question such a result. It was 
to have been expected that a panic would seize upon the 
students. The number receded from 120 to 80. In 
view of this, Dr. Griffin said, the heavens were covered 
with blackness ; and, during the awful syncope which 
succeeded in vacation, we looked up and inquired, is this 
death ? 

But behold the providence of God ! When the col- 
lege came together the arrows of the Almighty were stuck 



158 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



in several hearts ; some old hopes were scattered to the 
winds ; and conviction began to creep upon some who had 
never felt conviction before. That cloud, which seemed 
like the darkness of the last day, now appeared to foretell 
abundance of rain. We stood in awful suspense, for 
God was in the cloud. At last it burst. And when we 
saw the heavenly floods descend, we could not help say- 
ing — "If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would 
not have showed us all these things." It was impossible 
to resist the impression — Heaven has decreed that this 
college shall live. Why come to raise it from the grave, 
if it is so soon to return to dust ? 

In that revival, out of eighty-five students, the whole 
number then in college, thirty five indulged hopes of con- 
version ; so that seventy, out of the eighty-five, were at 
that time regarded as Christians. Dr. Griffin said that 
this revival saved the college. The week before the 
revival commenced, the resolution had been taken by the 
guardians of the college, to solicit and raise a fund of 
$25,000, to establish a new Professorship, and to 
build a chapel, and thus to demonstrate that the 
college was to live. This, and nothing short of this, it 
was thought, would restore assurance of its life in the 
public mind. So fully was it felt that the fate of the col- 
lege was staked on the success of this subscription. The 
effort was commenced in September, and was conditioned 
on being completed by the last day of November. Dr. 
Griffin went abroad upon this agency to solicit funds, and 
the difficulty of the undertaking, at a time of commercial 
crisis, as it then was, and among a people, most of whom 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 159 



regarded the" college as a sinking ship, may well be con- 
ceived. In Northampton, he met with a very efficient 
agent of Amherst College, traversing the same ground for 
that Institution, and far surpassing him in his success. 
The agent informed him of the success he had met with in 
such and such instances. Dr. Griffin replied with aston- 
ishment — " Then you are the 'prince of beggars" 

About this time we met with him, when he had but 
four weeks of time in which to raise $ 12,000. The 
most practical men, then told him, that his cause was 
hopeless ; that the sum could not be raised in that time. 
To our question, as to what he himself thought of it, he 
replied : — " When I look at the facts, I think it impos- 
sible ; but when I look up, I feel that it will be done." 
His mind had taken this impression, from an affecting 
view of the remarkable series of God's interpositions to 
save the college. From a view of these, he said, he had 
concluded that the college was dear to Christ, and that 
he would not let it die. He said, in reference to the fact, 
that both of his own children and his son-in-law had been 
converted in the revival above alluded to, that the same 
influence which had been sent down to save the college, 
had blessed his own house ; and he felt that if ever a 
man was bound to go on till he fell down, to save an Insti- 
tution that was dear to the Saviour, he was the man. He 
said, that but for the strong confidence derived from this 
source, he should have turned his back on the attempt to 
raise this fund, a hundred times, after he had gone into 
it ; and that, had it not been for that revival, he never 
could have found favor with the churches. He said it 



160 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



was evident to all good men who heard the story, that 
the college, then in the agonies of death, had been owned 
of heaven, and selected as an instrument of vast good. 
Now he could not but exclaim, " This college has been 
saved by the Holy Ghost, and to the Holy Ghost let it be 
devoted forever, as a scene of revivals of religion, to raise 
up ministers and missionaries for Christ and his Church P ? 

The subsequent history of the college has more than 
realized the expectations which he formed concerning it at 
that time. Providence has wonderfully preserved and 
enlarged it. It has never fallen under anv sinister influ- 
ence, but has been under the administration of true and 
faithful men ; men, who for soundness of views, for well 
earned reputation, and for skill in the science of instruc- 
tion, have left nothing to be desired. And what is more, 
it has been visited with a succession of revivals of relig- 
ion, occurring after brief intervals, from that day to the 
present. 

It may be thought by some, that so much attention 
given to revivals of religion, by the head of a college, 
must be injurious to the progress of study in the insti- 
tution. Dr. Griffin judged differently, and sustained his 
judgment by good reasons. He regarded revivals, not as 
the mere incidents and collaterals of a college course, 
that might be harmlessly tolerated, to a limited extent, 
but as the very end of the existence of a college. Let 
none fear, he said, that this marked attention to religion, 
will crowd out the interests of science. The greatest 
enemies of science among young men, are dissipation and 
indolence. Let sober habits take the place of the former, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 161 



and a conscientious purpose to improve their time, and 
qualify themselves for usefulness rouse them from the lat- 
ter, and higher attainments will be made in everything 
that can elevate the character or contribute to the advance- 
ment of human happiness. 

Dr. Griffin was apt most completely to identify himself 
with the work to which he regarded himself as called by 
Christ. " For several years," he said, " my chief desire 
to live has been, that I might do something for the 
Saviour through the influence of this Institution. All 
my thoughts and plans of usefulness centre here. And 
such hopes are encouraged by the times in which we live. 
A new age is opening on the world, which will bring out 
greater wonders than have yet been seen. Tens of 
thousands of ministers and missionaries are wanted. 
All the colleges, connected with a religious influence, 
may be expected to be visited with revivals, as colleges 
never were before. And if the colleges are ever to be 
the orbs whence the rays of a sanctified ministry are to be 
sent into the regions of upper and nether darkness, their 
friends must devote them to Christ, and follow the dedi- 
cation with prayers, not to be denied." 



CHAPTER IX. 



HIS PUBLISHED WORKS. 

Dr. Griffin was far from abounding in published 
works ; but some of his works have been effiecient in use- 
fulness, and none of them are deficient in the talent put 
forth in their execution. Perhaps the most successful of 
all his publications was the Missionary Sermon, which he 
preached at Philadelphia, and which we have noticed be- 
fore, as having given the first impulse to the Missionary 
cause, in the hands of the missionary pioneers, of the 
haystack memory. This was among the earliest of his 
publications. He was, from time to time, the author of 
other occasional discourses, which deserve to be collected 
in a future edition of his published sermons. 

His Park Street Lectures have accomplished a great 
work. His residence in Boston was at a time when it 
required the utmost effort to effect even a little in favor of 
evangelical truth. The prejudices of the people were so 
strong, and their passions so much inflamed against every 
effort to bring back the doctrines of the New Testament, 
that it required the spirit of a martyr in any one who 
should dare to attempt it. It was in these circumstances 
that the Park Street Lectures were produced. In spite 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN". 



163 



of all repellances, they commanded a hearing when they 
were delivered ; and that from many who were connected 
with the Unitarian congregations. One of the distin- 
guished men of those days, — distinguished in the legal 
profession, — having heard the lectures through, made 
this remark upon them : — "I have heard Dr. Griffin,' ' 
he said, " represented as a great declaimer, but these lec- 
tures have shown him to be a powerful reasoner." There 
is in these lectures, such an originality in the mode of 
presenting and illustrating the great doctrines of the Gos- 
pel, and withal such aptness in commending them to the 
common apprehension, that, notwithstanding the multi- 
tude of publications on these themes, they have secured 
a permanent hold on the public mind. Their special value 
is in the light which they throw on the points of difficulty 
in matters of doctrinal belief ; or rather in leading the 
mind to its true point of rest, in relation to the perplex- 
ing and apparently conflicting matters of Scripture doc- 
trine. Take an example, touching the great difficulty 
which is felt in reconciling the divine agency with human 
freedom, or in reconciling God's sincerity in his calls upon 
men with the fact that he himself works all in all. Speak- 
ing to this point the author says : 

" God is exhibited in the Scriptures in two distinct 
characters, — as the great physical agent, or main spring 
of motion, and the moral governor of the world, holding 
in his hand the rights of the Godhead ; commanding, 
threatening, punishing, inviting, promising and reward- 
ing. These two departments are so distinct as to belong 
to two different persons in the Godhead, — the former 



164 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIEEItf. 



being the office work of the Spirit, and the latter the 
office work of the Father. Now for the Father to invite 
those whom the Spirit does not sanctify, implies no more 
inconsistency than for the Son to mediate for those with 
whom the Father is displeased. There is no more con- 
trariety in the case than between desire and submission 
in the saint. As the act of the Spirit leaves the moral 
agency of men entire, the Father may reasonably address 
them as complete agents, — agents as entirely distinct 
from him as from each other. There is no exercise of 
moral government upon any other principle. No other 
principle accords with truth, for men are complete 
moral agents, and as distinct from God as from each 
other ; and it is no less reasonable for him to command, 
invite, promise and threaten his subjects, than for an 
earthly prince to do this ; and he is as sincere in his 
invitations and promises, even to those who reject his 
calls as an earthly prince could be. In estimating the 
sincerity of these addresses, you are to lay out of the 
account the physical agency of the Spirit, since this in 
no degree interferes with the freedom of sinners, nor 
with the Father's readiness to receive as many as apply. 
Lose yourselves in contemplating him in the simple 
light of a moral governor, full of love and mercy, hav- 
ing nothing to do with the work of constraining men, 
sending abroad his invitations to moral agents, fully able 
to comply and actually receiving all who come, — lay 
aside the relations of before and after, and consider all 
this (both the purpose and the act) as only present, and 
then say, are not his invitations to all men sincere ? In 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 165 



this light, the whole subject appears, (as many can tes? 
tify) to a soul possessed of the lively and realizing views 
of faith. 

" If any one has any difficulty in reconciling his ideas 
of the unlimited power of God with the apparent weak- 
ness which God assumes when he invites and entreats, 
and say, ' do not that abominable thing which I hate/ 
as if he had no power but that of motives, he will find 
that this mode of conceiving the subject will relieve him. 
Let him conceive of God in one person, as the sovereign 
efficient cause ; and in the other, as the moral governor, 
having no power but that of motives ; and then let him 
conceive of man as standing in corresponding relations to 
God, — being entirely dependent, and a passive recipient 
of divine impressions on the one hand, and, on the 
other, a complete moral agent, free to act as he wills, 
(and there is a basis for both these,) and the difficulty 
will vanish." 

We have been greatly indebted to one of Dr. Griffin's 
illustrations, on another point embraced in these lectures. 
We had found the difficulty which many find, in recon- 
ciling the Calvinistic doctrines with any proper encourage- 
ment in the use of the means of conversion. We had 
read over the discussion between Dr. Spring and the 
New Haven divines about the means of regeneration, 
and yet there was a complicated knot which we could not 
untie. It was plain that the efforts of an unregenerate 
mind were wholly selfish and sinful, and could not be 
acceptable to God. It was further plain, that the sinner 
made such efforts with no proper desire after holiness — 



166 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

not properly as a means to an end — since one could not 
desire what lie was averse to — and yet, on the other 
hand, it was plain that a use of means, in God's econ- 
omy of grace, was indispensable. "We found a difficulty 
in forming for ourselves a satisfactory conception of 
the subject, and still more in presenting it to other 
minds. This difficulty was wholly relieved, by the view 
which is presented in the following paragraphs, by Dr. 
Griffin : 

u Nothing then but inevitable destruction awaits those, 
who cast off fear and restrain prayer, who neglect the 
means of grace, or attend on them with a careless mind. 
Not a symptom appears that such people are ever to be 
saved ; and continuing thus, they are as certainly lost, as 
there is a God in heaven. 

" But after all, this whole process is only God using 
means with the sinner, and not the sinner using means 
with God. The voluntary agency of the sinner must be 
set in motion, and the indispensable necessity of this may 
be displayed, to show him the madness of stupidity, and 
to rouse his attention ; but after all, in a moral point of 
view, his agency is of no account. The whole credit is 
due to another. It is God that awakens his attention 
and keeps it awake. It is God, pressing an unholy agency 
into service, as he did in the case of Pharaoh. The whole 
is nothing but God struggling with the sinner, and the 
sinner with all his moral feelings struggling against God. 
It is God bringing good out of evil, and forcing the selfish 
agency which is directed against him, to promote his 
merciful designs. In a word, it is God using means upon 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 167 



the sinner, and not the sinner using means for himself. 
To compare his unholy exertions, (as is often done) to 
the lawful means employed by the husbandman is grossly 
deceptive, and tends only to foster the self-righteousness, 
which is the principal enemy to be overcome. There is 
no real resemblance between the two cases. The sinner 
has never broken up his fallow ground. He only sows 
upon the rocks. He plants thistles instead of wheat, 
and cockles instead of barley." 

The concluding lecture of the series presents the whole 
subject in an original and striking light. Having pre- 
sented the proofs of these four doctrines : Total Deprav- 
ity, Regeneration, Election, and Perseverance, he sets 
them to the proof of each other as follows : 

" These four doctrines must stand or fall together. 
They support each other, like different parts of an arch ; 
and you cannot tear one away without demolishing the 
whole structure. They are inseparable links of a chain, 
of which if one is supported the whole are supported. 
He who would overthrow one of these articles, must 
demolish the four, and leave not a wreck of the system 
behind. These four doctrines are supported separately 
by four distinct and strong classes of texts. This shows 
you the whole chain, supported by a column under each 
link, yielding to each a fourfold support. The literal 
meaning of four numerous classes of texts must be swept 
away, before one of the articles can fall. To bring either 
of them into doubt, a man must march through the Scrip- 
tures, and twist into a forced construction the great body 
of the sacred writings. 



168 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



" These four doctrines appear like four timbers dove- 
tailed into each other. The junction of Total Depravity 
and Regeneration is exhibited in this text, — " You hath 
he quickened who were dead in tresspasses and sins : the 
junction of Regeneration and Election in this, — Whom he 
did predestinate, them he also called : the junction of 
Election and Perseverance in this, — Whom he called, 
them he also glorified. 

" I bring a numerous class of texts, which plainly as- 
sert the doctrine of Total Depravity. I fortify this proof 
with collateral points. You still doubt. I tell you, that 
if I am right, you may expect to find in the Bible a doc- 
trine, that is an unavoidable inference from this, — but 
which cannot be true, if this is false — and that is Regen- 
eration. We go and search for the doctrine of Regenera- 
tion, and find it supported by the obvious meaning of thir- 
ty or forty plain and forcible texts. You doubt ; and I 
tell you, if I am right, you may expect to find a doc- 
trine which is an inference from that — that is, absolute 
personal Election. We make the search and find this 
too, supported by a long catalogue of texts. You still 
doubt ; and I tell you, that if this is true, we may expect 
to find such a doctrine as this of the Perseverance of the 
Saints, which is an unavoidable inference from Election. 
This, too, on examination we find supported by explicit 
declarations, on almost every page of the Bible. Now I 
ask, is not this vastly more than a fourfold proof? Had 
the whole number of the texts been appropriated exclu- 
sively to any one of those doctrines, they would have 
yielded it far less support than they now do. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 169 



" Each doctrine stands supported by the whole body of 
texts contained in the four classes, and cannot be shaken 
while either class is allowed to have a literal meaning ; 
and being strung together, both by Scripture and reason, 
in an indissoluble chain, they lend each other an influence, 
to fix the construction, almost beyond calculation. How 
prodigious then is the proof in favor of the whole ! — in fa- 
vor of each ! " 

The above extracts exhibit Dr. Griffin's original man- 
ner of presenting the great doctrines of grace. Whenev- 
er a small treatise may be needed by any one, to put into 
the hands of a friend to settle his mind touching these vi- 
tal truths, we know of none better adapted to the purpose 
than the Park Street Lectures ; which are now published, 
in a cheap and convenient form, by the Congregational 
Board of Publication. 

HIS WORK ON THE ATONEMENT. 

Dr. Griffin's Treatise on the Atonement has met with 
less favor from the public than any of his other works, 
while it was evidently with himself a favorite production, 
as compared with any other. In his Theological Ques- 
tions, drawn up for the use of students, with references 
to the Text Books appropriate, he cited this, to so many 
points, that one might infer that it contained in itself a 
system of Divinity. The success of this book with the 
public, however, was very limited ; and, as it seems to us, 
from causes wholly extrinsic. It was produced at a time 
of life, when the author's mind was in full vigor. It 
11 



170 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



treats of subjects for which his niind had a remarkable 
adaptation. It shows his power of setting metaphysical 
trains of thought in a plain light ; its grand theme consti- 
tutes one of the most vitally interesting branches of Chris- 
tian Theology; and the style and execution of the work 
was most happy. And yet its circulation, so to speak, 
came as far short of its merits, in its own generation, as 
did that of Milton's Paradise Lost ; and that in some re- 
spects, for a similar reason. 

The occasion of his writing the book, to wit, the fierce 
disputes existing at that period, as to the question of Lim- 
ited and General Atonement, was the occasion of its com- 
paratively limited success. The title of the book is, "An 
Humble Attempt to Eeconcile the Differences of Chris- 
tians, Respecting the Extent of the Atonement ; and show 
that the Controversy which exists on the Subject is chief- 
ly Verbal." This very title, coming out and staring in 
the face the heated controvertists of that day, was enough 
to settle the question of its success. Those who can re- 
call the state of feeling in theological circles in New 
York, where New England and Scotland had come into 
conflict at the time when this book came from the press, 
and at the # same time when Whelpley's " Triangle " was 
showing its angles, can well understand why a book, 
which was written to reconcile the differences should have 
wanted readers. Few theological controversies have 
been conducted with more heat than this, at the period of 
which we speak. Such was the feeling of the controver- 
sialists at that time, that they would naturally regard 
themselves as almost insulted, to be told that all their fire 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 171 



and fury was about words, and words only. With what 
patience could they entertain a book that put this forth in 
capitals on its title page ? 

Dr. Griffin had recently removed from Boston to New- 
ark. In Boston, he had been contending for the very 
vitals of Christianity, with those who denied the Lord 
that bought them. And when he came into the focal 
heat of a controversy, on a question about words, to no 
profit, but to the subverting of the hearers, it was natural 
that he should wish to mediate between the parties, and 
show that there was no real difference. But, as the Rus- 
sian war is now in a state in which neither party can wel- 
come a mediator, so at that time was the controversy about 
these points. Both parties agreed in repelling the ' ' Hum- 
ble Attempt." We well recollect what was said of it at 
the time. The excuse for not reading it was that it was 
unintelligible. Men of acutest minds complained that 
they could not understand it ; a rare complaint against a 
book written in sunbeams, by an author whose most prom- 
inent quality was his clearness and perspicuity ; his faculty 
of making the most abstruse subjects plain. But their 
eyes were holden that they could not see. 

But though his book did not accomplish its immediate 
end to any considerable extent, that end is now fully ac- 
complished. It is now, we think, very generally admit- 
ted that that fierce dispute was mainly a dispute about 
words, and that the difference between the sound Scotch 
Theologians and the sound New England Theologians, 
on the Extent of the Atonement, is merely a difference 
of definitions. If we define the word Atonement to 



172 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



mean all that is included in the idea of Redemption, we 
must, of course, either believe in a Limited Atonement, 
or in a Universal Salvation. But if we define it to mean 
no more than that which opens the way for the pardon of 
sin, or removes legal obstructions to the exercise of for- 
giveness, then is the Atonement seen to have been made 
for all men. It was on this ground essentially, that Dr. 
Griffin undertook the reconciliation of the controversy. 
Defining his position, he says : — 

M We mean by Atonement, nothing more than that 
which is the ground of release from the curse ; and we 
separate it entirely from the merit of Christ, or his claim 
to a reward. Our brethren comprehend, under the name, 
not only what we understand by expiation, but merit 
also, with all its claim. And if they could see the pro- 
priety of limiting the term as we do, few of them would 
deny our conclusions. In their mouth, the word is al- 
ways co-extensive with ransom, loutron ; the price of Re- 
demption, loutrosis ; and the question which they raise is 
about Particular Redemption, on which there really is 
no dispute, we believing as fully as they do, that Redemp- 
tion, in the higher and more perfect sense, was accom- 
plished only for the Elect. It is to be noticed that ran- 
som, and the words of that nature, are used in two senses 
in the New Testament ; first, for the blood of Christ, laid 
down for a moral agent, to deliver him from death, if he 
on his part will accept the offer. This I call the lower 
ransom. And it is exactly what we mean by* Atonement. 
Secondly, for expiation and merit united. A ransom has 
two influences. It supports the claim of the Redeemer, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 173 



and it is tbat out of respect to which the holder of the 
captives lets them go. According to this, the ransom of 
Christ includes his merits which claimed the release of the 
captives as his reward, and his Atonement, out of respect 
to which, as the honor of the law was concerned, the 
Father consented to their discharge. This I call the 
higher ransom. This was not offered for all. For none 
of us will say, that Christ so purchased the whole race, by 
the merit of his obedience, that he could claim them all 
as his promised reward." 

This extract embraces the main points which are ar- 
gued out in the book. Aside from the value of the work, 
as placing this question on its true ground, so as to obvi- 
ate all reasonable controvesy about it, the book has rare 
value, as furnishing a general exhibition of the doctrine of 
the Atonement. For the author had occasion to exhibit 
all the correlative parts of the subject, in order to show 
their relation to the single question in discussion. Speak- 
ing for ourselves, we can say that there is no uninspired 
book from which we have derived more of the views which 
we entertain on this great subject than from this. 

Sometimes a work, which was not appreciated by the 
age in which it was written, revives and does important 
service in after times ; and it strikes us, that this work 
has that in it which posterity will not suffer to die. But 
we are no prophet, and will refer that question to pos- 
terity. 

The experience which this masterly production met 
with in its day, may admonish authors to be careful of 
offering mediations and compromises between contending 



174 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIX. 



parties. Never was there a more decided case of a war of 
words, drawing strongly upon the passions of the disput- 
ants ; and yet when this mediator came in between the 
parties, it was only to receive the shots from both sides. 

Of Dr. Griffin's authorship, we do not purpose to speak 
more particularly. His volumes of sermons chosen and 
corrected by hiniself. to be published after his death, are 
well known. These, sermons though they are, if repub- 
lished, in a moderately cheap edition, would have a wide 
circulation. But if Dr. Griffin's occasional sermons 
could be also collected into a volume, they would well re- 
pay the publication. For they are not second in merit to 
any of the sermons of his which have been published. 
Some of them, his Missionary sermon for example, are 
hardly surpassed by any in the English language. 

Having presented his views of the atonement as theo- 
retically stated, it may be well in this connexion to give 
a chapter in his own experience, which shows the connex- 
ion of this doctrine with a remarkable crisis in his spirit- 
ual history. He says in his journal : 

;{ As I was walking the streets of Newark, pondering 
on my sins, a flash of light came across my mind, send- 
ing home a conviction of sin, which instantly deprived me 
of hope. I do not know that I could be more sure of be- 
ing in an unregenerate state, if I were in hell. The fol- 
lowing dialogue then took place with myself. ' "Well, go 
to Christ, as you direct other sinners to do.' ' But he is 
away beyond the hills, that I cannot get to him.' ' Well, 
ask God to bring you to him.' ' But the prayers of the 
unregenerate cannot ascend above the- clouds. I have 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 175 



nothing to stand upon to begin.' I felt then totally un- 
done, helpless and hopeless. I did then as Paul did on 
the plain of Damascus. Instantly the scene changed. 
* Well, if that God who, self moved, let down a hand 
to pluck Abram and David from a state of unregeneracy, 
self moved shall let down a hand, to pluck me from de- 
struction, I live ; otherwise I die.' I was composed in a 
moment, and seemed to lie down at his feet, and rest eve- 
ry issue on his will, without a struggle. Was not this a 
casting of myself entirely on the sovereign mercy of God ? 
This I have learned from the reflections of near seven and 
twenty years, to call the dernier resort. 

"Thus I continued through Monday and Tuesday. 
But out of that death and submission arose the life and 
light that followed. The week that followed changed the 
whole character of my experience and preaching, and 
made them permanently more full of Christ. 

" On Monday I set out on a preaching tour among the 
neighboring congregations. On Monday and Tuesday I 
allowed not myself to hope that I was a Christian, — put 
myself in an attitude of an awakened sinner, applying 
the sermons, which I heard addressed to sinners, to my- 
self, — pleaded for an interest in Christ, — felt a tender con- 
science, — was very fearful of pride and any movement of 
animal affection, which should lessen my sense of my ru- 
ined condition, and total dependence on sovereign mercy, 
— -felt most happy in this state of mind. I longed after 
deliverence from sin,-^-longed to be made holy by the in- 
fluences descending around me, — but dreaded flights of 
joy, lest they should raise me from my proper place. Mr. 



176 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



Richards met me, and staid all night with me. In the 
evening we discoursed largely of Christian experience. I 
expressed to him my doubts of my own religion. I com- 
plained, that I had always found it difficult realizingly to 
feel that I deserved eternal punishment. He said that 
Christians attained this sense, by seeing that God is so 
unspeakably lovely, that no conceivable punishment is 
great enough for sinning against him, — that he had seen 
God's holiness, purity and justice to be so glorious, that 
it appeared, if men should never commit an outward sin, 
they would deserve to be eternally damned for not loving 
him. While he was conversing, I thought I had some 
glimpse of the excellent purity, grandeur, awfuiness and 
sweetness of divine holiness ; and saw that I had been 
searching for the door of deliverance on the wrong side of 
the room, in seeking for a sense of the evil of sin, in ex- 
amining what I had done, rather than what God is. 

" I mentioned another prime difficulty that I had felt ; 
that is, to apprehend Christ as bearing my sins, and being 
a proper substitute for me. He mentioned, that common 
Christians could not go into a critical examination of the 
Atonement ; that with them, all was a matter of mere 
faith and reliance on the promise and oath of God, to ac- 
cept the sacrifice of Christ, as a substitute for them ; and 
that from a sense of the value of Christ's personal charac- 
ter, and consequently of his blood, they felt it proper, 
that his death should be accepted, as a full atonement for 
them. I was convinced, that I had been substituting rea- 
son for faith, — that I ought to yield more implicit belief 
to the testimony which God had given of his Son, — to 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 177 

look with a believing eye on those precious aspects, which 
his priesthood assumes in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
rather than on my own systematical reasonings — and 
that a failure here had been my great mistake, by means 
of which I had been so long destitute of an adequate 
sense of Christ as my substitute. 

" He disclosed to me a distressing conflict which he 
formerly had on this point, which subsided in consequence 
of a transporting contemplation of - these words : For 
such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, 
undefiled and separate from sinners, and made higher 
than the heavens. As soon as these words were men- 
tioned they appeared transparent, and to contain within 
them all that I wanted, if I could only break the glass 
and get the treasure. With these feelings I retired to 
sleep. 

" When I awoke, the glorious High Priest was before 
me. I read the context to that verse. What an empha- 
sis does Paul, in this Epistle, put on the Priesthood of 
Christ, — much more than I have done in my experience. 
I felt that there is a ponderous reality in the priesthood 
of Christ ; and that it is a great honor to the holiness of 
God, that no sinner can be admitted to him but by the 
sacrifice of our High Priest. My heart was moved, and 
delighted with a sense of his Priesthood. There is much 
more reality in it than I have hitherto discovered, — a re- 
ality which I am now convinced that neither flesh and 
blood nor any reasonings can reveal. 

" I begin to think that when saints get to heaven, 
much of their astonishment will arise from views which 



178 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



they will wonder they had not possessed before. I now 
perceive why many evangelical ministers have in their 
preaching drawn the greatest motives to love and obe- 
dience from the Cross of Christ. My soul has some 
melting sense of the blessed High Priest, the way of ac- 
cess to the awful majesty of divine purity, or rather the 
way into the holy of holies. These new views, were they 
clear enough, would be ravishing, and the best preserva- 
tive from sin. It is the Cross of Christ, seen and felt, 
that must crucify sin. 

' ' It has been a just complaint, that there has not been 
enough of Christ in my sermons. When I have spoken 
of the Atonement, it has been in a clumsy, systematic 
way, in which the most charming views of it have been 
passed by. Before the majesty of this spiritual truth, 
how do the little arts of seizing the passions, by loosely, 
lightly, and, I had almost said, profanely, talking of 
Christ's scars and sighs, bow and flee away ! In how un- 
hallowed a manner have I treated this infinitely dignified, 
this holy and heavenly theme ! 

' ' During my journey this day, I could think of nothing 
with pleasure but this sweet and glorious text, — Such an 
High Priest, fyc. During Mr. Thompson's sermon from 
the words, — The soul that sinneth, it shall die,—mj mind 
was solemnly fixed, in view of the reality of all that he 
said. When I came to speak after the sermon, I spoke 
with simplicity and feeling on these points, — informed the 
people that I could not convey the sense I had of the ho- 
liness of God, and the glorious mystery of his High 
Priest ; that flesh and blood, I was sure, could not reveal 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 179 



it to them. Though I took no pains to speak, and was 
only struggling in vain to get out this sense of those 
things, which were in mj mind, the people were melted. 

44 This was a great day with my soul. I had very dis- 
tinct views of the purity and holiness of God, of the way 
of access to him by Christ, and of the preciousness of 
our great High Priest ; in so much that in my public ex- 
hortations I could dwell on no other subject. After ser- 
vice, I told brother Thompson, that if these views, so 
new, of those great truths which are the essence and pith 
of all divine truth, and on which my mind had always la- 
bored with so much darkness, should continue, I should 
almost conclude that I had never experienced the new 
birth before. 

" Yet all the time, though happy, affected and wonder- 
ing, I was sensible that I had only a faint glimpse of 
Christ, and felt guilty that I saw no more. That blessed 
verse ran in my mind, and burst forth in every prayqp, 
exhortation and private discourse. When, for a moment, 
I lost the sense of the beauty of the plan of Grace, I 
would reflect, — For such an High Priest became us, S>c. 
-In the light of these discoveries, all the common mercies 
of my life swelled to an amazing size. I longed that my 
wife and all my friends, and all the world, should see 
and adore this Saviour. I felt like one who had found a 
great treasure, and wished to have all know of it and 
share it. I had no animal excitement. All was still, 
solid and real ; and, for the first time, I lay down quietly 
on my bed, in the full assurance of hope." 



CHAPTER X. 



HIS TREATMENT OF OPPONENTS —HIS MEEKNESS AND HUMILITY. 

Dr. Griffin was not one of those of whom all men 
speak well, nor one over whose grave it could be testified,, 
" There lies one who never had an enemy." His course 
of duty, as he conceived it, led him sometimes into earnest 
controversy, and when occasion required, he did not shrink 
from taking a post, like that in Park Street, where of 
necessity he must bear the brunt of a storm ; a man that 
shrinks not from taking such a post, or in other ways 
obeys similar calls of duty, is not one to pass through the 
world without conflicts. Yet the temper which he exhib- 
ited under his conflicts, shows- the power of divine grace 
in him, especially considering what must have been the 
native elements of his character. Dr. Sprague says of 
him : — 

1 1 Another peculiarly amiable trait in his character was 
his freedom from censor ious?iess. The law of kind- 
ness was on his lips. Though he was often engaged in 
controversy, and felt himself called in obedience to his 
strong conviction of duty, to expose what he deemed the 
errors of others, either in doctrine or practice, yet he was 
uniformly courteous towards his opponents. The maxim 
which regulated his conduct towards a controversialist was, 
crush the heresy hut spare the heretic" 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 181 



This witness is true. The feature here described was 
unusually prominent. "We have often been surprised when 
seeing his mind deeply enlisted in exciting controversies, 
to notice how careful he was, even in conversation about 
his opponents, to say nothing that would work a personal 
injury, and how careful not to misrepresent their views. 
This appears the more remarkable, when we consider how 
prominent an element of his nature strong feeling was. 
In the heat of controversy, and as the result of party 
prejudice, hard things have been said of him ; but his 
controversial writings will be searched in vain, to find 
instances of his indulging in language, adapted to injure 
the feelings or characters of his opponents. The memory 
of his conversations, likewise, will be found equally clear 
of such material. 

Dr. Griffin had too much that was decisive and positive 
in his character, to pass through life leaving it to be tes- 
tified over his grave — 1 ' Here lies the man who never had 
an enemy.' ' No man could hold the position which he 
held with regard to evangelical truth, and sustain it with 
so much strength, without having both tongues and pens 
moved against him. Now and then onsets were made 
upon him to effect the ruin of his reputation. The record 
which he made of his feelings under one of these trials, as 
transcribed into his Memoir, is worthy to be here trans- 
cribed again. 

' 4 At this period the greatest trial of my life commenced, 
through the unkindness of friends whom I had never in- 
jured. Through misrepresentations and misapprehen- 
sions, I was accused of things of which I was perfectly 



182 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



innocent. In that time of trial I was determined not to 
say a wrong thing or do a wrong action, to save my char- 
acter or life. I never saw before how little love I had ; 
how hard it was to love a mere neighbor, as myself ; and 
never before saw the miracle which was exhibited in the 
Pratorium and on the cross. I felt a spirit of forbearance 
and kindness, which I scarcely thought possible ; and 
when another spirit arose, my remedy was to go to my 
knees and pray for my persecutors until I could forgive 
them." 

By persons having little or no acquaintance with Dr. 
Griffin, he has sometimes been called a "domineering" 
and " supercilious disputant/' But the evidence of these 
traits of character appears no where in his publications, and 
in none of his personal intercourse with men. Those who 
knew him well can testify to his rare simplicity, kindness, 
and respect for the views and opinions of others. 

The only alleged exception, which we have ever seen 
published, is the passage between him and Dr. Emmons, 
in which Dr. Emmons' laughing is offset against his weep- 
ing. ,Dr. Emmons had published a sermon setting forth 
his peculiar views of the Atonement, which are well 
known to conflict, on some important points, with the 
general view ; and, as it would appear from the shape of 
the letter, had sent a copy of his discourse to Dr. Griffin. 
This sermon, coming from a distinguished Orthodox 
source, Dr. Griffin would naturally feel, was of a charac- 
ter to weaken his hands against the antagonists by whom 
he was surrounded. Under the influence of this feeling 
he seems to have penned the note below. Perhaps, all 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



183 



things considered, it was not wise for him to have so 
expressed his grief ; and perhaps it was not wise for Dr. 
Emmons to reply to it as he did. We do not think that 
in the case of either, the act is to be selected as a master- 
piece of wisdom ; nor, on the other hand as one of the 
" dead flies" which can destroy the choice perfume attach- 
to their names. But as the correspondence has been 
published, in connection with comments severely bearing 
on Dr. Griffin's reputation, after his death, it can be no 
offence, in a friend and pupil of his, to place the same 
correspondence again on paper, and to let it speak for 
itself, out of any connection with those comments. It is, 
omitting dates, as follows : — 

" My Dear Brother : — I have read your Sermon on 
the Atonement, and have wept ever it. 

Affectionately Yours, 

E. D. Griffin." 

To this Dr. Emmons, replied : — 

" Dear Sir : — I have read your letter, and laughed 
at it. Yours, 

Nath'l Emmons. 

This suggests a thought, which we have heard express- 
ed by one less acquainted with him, to wit, that he was 
before God a very tumble man, while before man he had 
too high conceptions of his own importance. Perhaps if 
we had been in a position to have any relative sense of 
importance, and to stand in any comparison with him, we 
might also have taken such an impression. It is very 



184 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



possible, that among men claiming an equality of stand- 
ing with him, he might have had a more consequential 
bearing, than was becoming a minister among brethren, 
though we never saw any thing of the kind. Great men 
usually have great faults, and their weaknesses are the 
more prominent for their greatness ; and it might have been 
a weakness of his, as of many others, to show in the pres- 
ence of others an unbefitting consciousness of his strength. 
To one in his position, the temptations to form such a habit 
are constantly present. But whatever may be alleged 
here, it is rare to find a minister better fulfilling the in- 
junction " to condescend to men of low estate." Though 
he did not in Williamstown sustain the relations of a 
pastor ) and though he had not a very extensive acquaint- 
ance with the poor that were there, yet such of them as 
came under his notice, were objects of special attention 
and kindness. We have now in mind, an instance. Soon 
after he came in town a negro man, who had worked for 
him in labors connected with his removal to Williamstown, 
was afterwards taken sick. Having heard of his sickness, 
he sought him out and climbing into his attic chamber, he 
visited him, prayed and conversed with him with more 
than a pastor's solicitude and kindness. This may be 
fairly said to be a sample of the manner in which he was 
wont to show his kindness to men in low estate. So that 
the general statement that he was not humble before 
men cannot be true, and it is possible that some persons 
in his presence, took such an impression of his actual 
superiority, as led them to think that he was as conscious 
of it as themselves. It is possible that they mistook their 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 185 



own sense of his greatness, for his, and this imparted a 
sense of self-importance when there was none. There was 
no man who would loathe himself more for such a pride 
than he, if he was conscious of it. 

Dr. Griffin was apt to form a very high estimate of 
such students under his care as gave signs of promise, 
especially if their religious character and sentiments were 
conformed to his own views. This was exemplified in 
what he thought and said of Mr. Hervey, who died while 
a missionary in the East Indies. He was one of the first 
fruits of Dr. Griffin's ministry in connexion with the 
college, the very first student, we think, who expressed 
the hope of conversion after Dr. Griffin came to Wil- 
liamstown. He had great simplicity of Christian charac- 
ter, and great zeal and devotedness to his work ; and the 
Doctor used to speak of him as if he looked up to him as 
a superior. He would name him in his sermons in the 
same category with Brainerd, and others like him. And, 
generally, he not only formed a generous estimate of the 
students under his charge, but he seemed evidently to 
enjoy their success and reputation as if he were repro- 
ducing himself in them. He evidently had a degree of 
zeal in the work of forming the minds of young men, 
which amounted to an ardent passion. 

The fact that Dr. Griffin was able so to distinguish 
between the heresy and the heretic, and to defend the 
truth with all fidelity and yet with all tenderness to per- 
sonal character, gave to his efforts great efficiency. It 
compelled his hearers to feel, that it was love to the truth, 
and love to man, and not the bitterness of party spirit, 
12 



186 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



that prompted his appeals. It is probably owing to this 
feature in his defence of the truth, in part, that so very 
small a proportion of the students who received their 
education under him, and who had, or acquired, a reli- 
gious character while in their course of education, ever 
manifested sympathy for the neologies which were the 
object of his aversion. Under the excitement of those 
times they were peculiarly exposed to be drawn over to 
the other side. Very few of them, however, actually 
were. 

The contest which Dr. Griffin had with spurious revival 
measures, was sustained at great advantage by him, from 
the fact of his great experience and success in revivals. 
The pretence was set up, that all who could not go into 
the new measures were cold and dead, and the enemies of 
revivals ; that opposition to the jjine of conduct marked 
out by Mr. Finney, and his wildest imitators, was a re- 
sistance of the Holy Ghost. But the presumption of such 
a pretence as this was made manifest when alleged against 
Dr. Griffin ; who had been made the instrument of a 
greater number of conversions, whose genuineness time 
had tested, than almost any minister then living, and 
whose ardent love of revivals it was impossible to call in 
question. 

Dr. Griffin was also a living witness in refutation of 
the notion, that the strong doctrines of Calvinism were 
not adapted to promote revivals and conversions ; and that 
in order to these desirable results, there must be an ex- 
clusive resort to the declaration of man's ability, and a 
concealment of his dependence. The whole ministry of 



RECOLLECTIONS OP DR. GRIFFIN. 187 



Dr. Griffin, now approaching towards its close, had shown 
that the weapons were mighty through God to the pulling 
down of strong holds. There was no resisting an appeal 
to facts. It was well known what doctrines constituted 
the prominent themes of his discourses, and it was as well 
known with what distinguished success his preaching had 
been crowned. Speaking of the revival under his minis- 
try at New Hartford, in the account of it published in 
the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, he says : — 

" In this work, the Divine Spirit seems to have borne 
a strong testimony to the truth of those doctrines which 
are generally embraced by our churches, and which are 
often distinguished by the appellation of Calvinism. These 
doctrines appear to have been the sword of the Spirit, by 
which sinners have been pricked in their hearts. It is 
under the weekly display of these, that the work has been 
earned on in our towns." 

He gives, in that communication, an instance of the 
conversion of a man seventy years of age, who was illit- 
erate, of a strong mind and malignant passions. Of him, 
he says : — ' 4 Having conceived a strong disgust at some 
of the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, he had given his 
word that he would hear them no more. I went to con- 
verse with him, and I never saw a case, in which so much 
deliberate rancour and deadly hatred, were expressed 
against everything sacred. In the expression of both his 
countenance and lips, he approximated the nearest to my 
ideas of the spirits in prison. 

' ' His enmity was not awakened by any sudden rage, but 
seemed deep rooted and implacable. Disconnected as he 



188 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



was from all religious society, and means of grace, it 
pleased God to take a strong hold of his mind. He con- 
tinued for a while trembling in retirement. But when he 
could contain no longer, he came to the meeting, and to 
find some Christians to whom he could open his distress. 
When I saw him next, he was ' clothed and in his right 
mind.' Inquiry being made as to his apprehensions of 
these doctrines, which had been so offensive to him, he 
replied they are the foundation of the world. Every air 
seemed changed ; softness and gentleness had taken the 
place of ferocity. I could not help reflecting, that a re- 
ligion which will make such changes in the tempers and 
manners of men is worth possessing.' ' 



CHAPTER' XI. 



HIS VIEWS AND USE OP THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 

It would have been difficult for an unprejudiced mind, 
to listen to the preaching of Dr. Griffin for a course of 
years, without being convinced that there is a vital force, 
which ought not to be lost, in that covenant through 
which God pledged to parents on certain conditions, the 
salvation of their children. We do not remember, that 
we ever heard from him a single sermon, arguing out the 
doctrine of infant baptism. Nor do the published vol- 
umes of sermons selected and prepared by him, contain 
one on that subject. Yet he had a habit of frequently 
introducing the subject with great force and effect, in a 
single paragraph or allusion. Sometimes he would, in 
his sermons, make a direct appeal to baptised children, as 
such ; and at other times, would discourse about them in 
a way, if possible, to touch some chords of feeling. 

Take an example from his sermon on " The heathen 
taken, and the children of the kingdom cast out." 

" May we not expect, that this will happen to many of 
our baptised children ? How many of our dear youth, 
who have been consecrated to God, and nurtured in the 
lap of piety, over whose unhappy state, many a parental 



190 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



tear has flowed, still remain stupid in sin and carried away 
with the world. They come to the house of God and 
hear, but nothing affects their hearts. They come to the 
domestic altar, but half the time their hearts are with, 
the fool's eyes, to the ends of the earth. They repeat 
their prayers in secret, (surely children who have been de- 
voted to God, cannot neglect the forms of prayer ;) they 
repeat their prayers in secret, but only with their lips. 
They read the Bible, but it is to them a sealed book. 
They pay a decent respect to the Sabbath ; (surely bap- 
tised children cannot profane the Sabbath, by rambling 
in the fields, or reading newspapers, or by worldly con- 
versation) but they have no relish for the proper employ- 
ments of the day, and are often ready to say, what a 
weariness is it ? They see other children brought in the 
arms of their parents to baptism, but it is with no deep 
impression of their baptismal obligations. They have 
heard that a Saviour died for them, but they are penetrat- 
ed with no love or gratitude to Christ. They lie under a 
sentence of eternal death ; and yet they can dance along 
the road of life, with as much glee, as if they were going 
to heaven. They are growing harder every day. For- 
merly, when they attended funerals, or heard awakening 
sermons, they would tremble ; but now they can see and 
hear with comparative indifference ; and all this time the 
privileges which they abuse, are marked with the price of 
blood. Have we no reason to fear, that God, wearied out 
with their obstinacy, will withdraw his influence from them, 
and carry it to the heathen ? And why should we not 
fear and tremble. We see the children of other Chris- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 191 



tians, living and dying without religion. There were the 
wicked children of Noah, of Job, of Abram, of Aaron, 
Eli, Samuel, David, Hezekiah, of Josiah, and in modern 
times of many eminent Christian ministers. We have 
great reason to fear, of many, that for their long abuse of 
privileges, the Spirit will be taken from them, and given 
to the children of the heathen. The spirit of God ordi- 
narily moves, so far in a line with nature, that what na- 
ture would seem most likely to produce, most generally 
takes place under his influence. Now to the pagan chil- 
dren, the gospel is new, and on that account more affect- 
ing. Its wonders break upon them, and arrest their at- 
tention. Their hearts have not been hardened by listen- 
ing to its sound without regarding it. Something of this 
may be in the meaning of those words — Woe unto thee 
Chorazin, &c. The squalid sons of the Southern Islands, 
the sable sucklings of Ethiopia and India, will sing Ho- 
zannas to the son of David, in the high courts of heaven, 
while many of the children of our prayers, will be cast 
out into outer darkness. Ah ! when they shall look up, 
and see the children of the forest enjoying the bliss of 
heaven, while they are cast out, there will indeed be weep- 
ing and gnashing of teeth. When they shall look up and 
see their pious parents in heaven, and find themselves con- 
fined to the society of devils, ah ! will there not be 
weeping and gnashing of teeth ? When they shall look 
up and see that father who used to bend over them with 
so much solemnity, when he warned and entreated them, 
and that mother so full of tenderness and love, when she 
took them aside for prayer— ah ! with what agony will they 



192 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



cast themselves on the fiery pavement, and tear their eyes, 
and curse their folly, and wish ten thousand times that 
they never had been born." 

This is a specimen of such appeals as he was wont to 
make to baptised children. But it will give a better idea 
of his views of this subject, to take an extract from his 
own pen as published in his memoir, which presents him 
actually taking hold of the covenant, and which gives his 
experience in a revival of religion, in which his own chil- 
dren were converted. We saw him while he was in the 
midst of that struggle. His eldest daughter had just 
been brought into the light. "VVe met him as he was com- 
ing out of her house. He said, that he had been con- 
versing with his son-in-law ; but he was made to feel that 
all his efforts as to giving life, was only as Gehazi's lay- 
ing the staff upon the face of the child. What was in 
progress in the interior of his mind during those scenes, 
is best told in the following extract, relating to his gener- 
al experience in that revival. 

' ■ My desire on this occasion was heartbreaking. I 
searched diligently to see if I was setting up the interest 
of my children against God's interest, or my will against 
God's. I could not find that I was. I felt my absolute 
dependence, and yet I could never stop in the use of 
means. I felt greatly abased under a sense of sin. ! 
how did I feel, often when upon my knees I was forced 
to say with tears — although my house be not so with God, 
&c. The case of Jacob at Penuel, and that of the Syro- 
phenician woman, always stood before me, and so confi- 
dent was I, that the promise was everlasting truth, that I 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 193 



saw I might indeed take hold of it, and draw the blessing 
down — that I might lawfully keep hold of it, until the 
blessing came. I seized it with both my hands, and said 
— Here I plant myself down, and on this spot I will re- 
ceive the blessing or die. I hold thee to thy word, and 
will not let thee go. Once an objection started up. Is 
not this holding of God to his word, a taking from him 
the right of sovereignty ? I was alarmed at this, as if in 
pursuit of every thing dear, a wall from heaven had dropt 
upon my path. I threw my eyes farther I thought, than 
I ever did before, into the regions of truth ; and soon I 
saw the solution. If God had not given me this spirit, to 
hold him fast, I should have been a clod. His sovereign- 
ty was fully exercised in that gift. As when a dam has 
suddenly stopped a rapid torrent, and after a time is sud- 
denly removed, and the waters impetuously sweep ; so 
did my restrained and eager spirit, when I saw the whole 
field open before me, and not a fence nor a bar in the way 
— sweep it with my whole heart and soul and mind and 
strength. If that was not prayer, and in some measure 
the prayer of Penuel, that could not fail in some degree 
to receive the blessing, I believe that I had never prayed, 
and was yet in my sins. 

- 'After placing myself on my pillow, and disposing of all 
other matters, I used to betake myself to this struggle, 
first for others, and then for my children. And if I ever 
prayed, it was in those nocturnal agonies ; and after thus 
staking my own salvation, as it were on the issue, I would 
go in the morning, or in the course of the day, to see 
how my daughter was affected. And she, knowing the 



194 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 

kindness of my intention, would meet me week after week 
with a filial smile. I could never have thought that such 
a filial smile, would so wither a parent's heart. My stated 
question was — do you realizingly feel that it would be 
just in God to cast you off? And she would as uniformly 
answer, no. She knew all about the doctrines, her under- 
standing was fully convinced. She was awakened, and 
attended all the meetings. But she went no further. 

" Things went on thus till January 18, and my anguish 
had well nigh laid me on a bed of sickness. That even- 
ing I visited Louiza, and put to her the old question — 
"Do you feel that it would be just in God to cast you 
off? " After a considerable pause, and in a low voice 
she answered, " Yes, sir." I started as a man awoke in 
a new world, and said — " Do you, my dear ? " Another 
pause, and in a low voice, she answered again, " Yes, sir." 
My prayer passed from her to her husband, and then her 
sister. Thus personal interests that had pressed like a 
mountain so long upon me, were swallowed up and lost, 
and the all absorbing desire was that eyes so dear to me, 
might see the glory of our Redeeming God, and his dy- 
ing Son, and that souls so dear, may show in their salva- 
tion the same glory to the universe. 

' ' The next morning Mrs. Griffin came into my room and 
s.aid, I have been into Ellen's chamber, and found her 
weeping. This was her first conviction. The next morn- 
ing Louiza came down to spend the day with us. When 
she reached the gate, the thought dropped upon her mind, 
that God reigns, and it was a glorious thought. The next 
day I said to Ellen ; my daughter, where do you expect 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 195 



to spend your eternity ? She answered. Why I have 
not thought of that. What then have you been thinking 
about ? I have been thinking how good God has been to 
me, and how ungrateful I have been. The next day she 
looked more like the image of misery than ever before. 
Mrs. Griffin came in and said ; Ellen has been saying to 
me ; " I am afraid papa does not feel about me, just as, 
he did about Louiza." Tell the dear child, said I, to come 
in, and I will talk with her. She came in, in great dis- 
tress. After some conversation I kneeled down with her 
by my library. The spot and the time I never shall for- 
get. The Syro-phenician woman had been much before me. 
She was before me then, and so was the glorious person 
to whom she applied. And it was easy for me to put my 
child into his arms, with all my heart and soul. It seem- 
ed to me, that it was impossible but that she should give 
herself to him, before she arose. When we arose, I ask- 
ed her if she had given herself to Christ, and she said ; 
' ' ! no and was apparently overwhelmed. The next 
time she came in, I asked her where she expected to spend 
eternity ? She said, I think most likely I shall spend it in 
hell. Well, my dear, God will decide that question for 
you. I know that, papa ; and I don't want that any body 
else should decide it." Why? 4 'Because he appears 
so good and just." So you think that you deserve hell ? 
Oh ! I know I do. What is your greatest desire ? To 
love God with all" my heart ; to love him and serve him 
all my days. In this condition she remained two days 
without a particle of hope. Then she said her burden 
fell off ; and the preciousness and loveliness of Christ ap- 
peared to her view." 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE CLOSING SCENE OF HIS LABORS AND LIFE. 

We have seen how he lived, let us see how he died, 
The power of divine grace was strikingly displayed here. 
Four years before his death he was affected with dropsy 
in the chest, resulting from an enlargement of the heart. 
When he was first conscious of the difficulty, he awoke in 
the night with a new and dreadful sensation, in his breast. 
He thought, what if this should be eternal ! The thought 
was overwhelming. The mind at once reverted to the 
case of friends who had died leaving no evidence that 
they were prepared for heaven. The sense of their suf- 
fering became as real to him as though he had stood on 
the margin of the burning lake ; and it was not till he 
was able to take a comprehensive view of the government 
of God, that he threw off the gloom that rested upon 
his mind. From this time there was a rapid increase in 
his spirituality and ripening for heaven. 

The progress of his disease brought to his mind the 
necessity of soon resigning his office \ which was not with- 
out the apprehension of straits and difficulties as to the 
support of his family. For, in consequence of the great 
fire in New York, rendering his stock in insurance com- 
panies worthless, he had been just before stripped of the 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 197 



property on which he relied for the support of his de- 
cling years. In some of his thoughts about this his mind 
reverted to Paul's words : " Charge them that are rich 
in this world that they be not high minded, nor trust in 
uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us 
richly all things to enjoy." u This trust," he said, " I 
habitually feel. I am delighted to think that Infinite 
Wisdom and Love control all events. I had supposed 
from my loss by the fire that it was the purpose of God 
to give me health to remain here a few years longer ; but 
I find a general discouragement about my health, among 
the trustees and scholars, mingled with great respect 
and kindness. On the occasion of the late visit of the 
Standing Committee, I became as fully convinced, as I 
could have been by a voice from heaven, that it will be my 
duty to resign at Commencement. How I am to be pro- 
vided for I do not know ; but I trust in God." 

Some particulars of this crisis in the Doctor's life and 
feelings are here given in a letter from Eev. Dr. Davis, of 
Westfield, who was at one time a teacher in the college 
with him, and who has long been a trustee of the college. 

"Rev. Parsons Cooke, D. D. — Sir: I have read 
with deep interest, your reminiscences of Dr. Griffin ; but 
as my personal acquaintance with him was not so intimate 
as yours, you having been a member of his first Senior 
class in college, I can hardly be supposed to be able to 
add anything of special interest to what you have said. 

" Your account of his resignation is true as far as it goes. 
There is one fact in reference to it, that should be added. 



i 



198 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



" It was not entirely a spontaneous movement on his 
part. It is not common for men, whose strength is de- 
clining, to be first to discover that their days of useful- 
ness are at an end. At the Senior examination, in July 
1836, it was very manifest to the standing committee of 
the trustees, that Dr. Griffin would not be able to con- 
tinue to perform the duties of his office another year. 
They foresaw that it would be necessary for the trustees 
to take some action' on the subject, at their annual meeting 
in August, and that it would be desirable that Dr! Griffin 
himself should bring the matter before the board, in such 
a form as would be agreeable to his feelings. The late 
Dr. Shepard, of Lenox, &s chairman of the committee, 
had a friendly interview with him, and told him frankly 
the fears they entertained in regard to his future labors. 
Dr. Griffin seemed at first astounded at the suggestion 
that he was an old man. ^ Is it possible," said he, " that 
I must retire from active service, at this period of my life, 
when most of my ancestors lived to a great age ?" In the 
morning he met the committee and told them the path of 
duty was clear in reference to himself, and that he should 
resign at the Commencement. Dr. Shepard afterwards 
said that the interview and its results was an exhibition of 
the moral greatness and Christian humility of Dr. Griffin, 
that was exceedingly delightful. I send the following 
record of that transaction in the Journal of Dr. Griffin, 
made the following Sabbath. 

4 6 ' On the occasion of the late visit of the standing com- 
mittee of the trustees, I became fully convinced as I 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 199 



could have been by a voice from heaven, that it will be 
my duty to resign at Commencement.' 

" I will add one word in reference to his mode of criti- 
cising essays and sermons of his class in Theology. He 
put himself in the attitude of a believer of the sentiment 
which the student was endeavoring to refute ; and showed 
himself well acquainted with the reasonings and objec- 
tions of all errorists. He thus made it manifest to the 
student, that it would never do to assail errors with weak 
arguments, and that it was better to say nothing, than to 
offer a few common place and superficial remarks. Hav- 
ing been criticised by him in this way, I was forced to be 
more careful in the choice of arguments, and more studi- 
ous to find those that cannot be refuted. I doubt not 
that the testimony of all his students would be similar to 
this. 

i \ I have always admired his sermons, as strictly gospel 
sermons. He preached Christ and him crucified. There 
was no effort to display his learning, his knowledge of sci- 
ence or of polite literature. The temptation is very 
strong for popiilar preachers, to crowd into their public 
discourses, remarks upon every exciting topic, to show 
that they belong to the progressive class of society. But 
he seemed to have an eye single to the glory of God, and 
to aim to edify Christians and win souls to Christ. 

Yours respectfully, 

E. Davis." 

Westfield, March 15, 1855. 

There have probably been few men who have borne 



200 RECOLLECTIONS OF BR. GRIFFIN". 



with greater difficulty the trial of being incapacitated for 
labor by advancing age and infirmity, than Dr. Griffin. 
The bodily infirmity, which he brought with him to the 
college, made him an old man sooner than he otherwise 
would have been. For the last two or three years of his 
labor there, he began to be admonished by his increas- 
ing infirmities that his time of active labor would be short ; 
and his feelings on this subject would betray themselves 
sometimes in his sermons. He would enumerate, among 
the trials to which Christians in this life are exposed, that 
of " being laid aside as useless and in the utterance of 
this thought his voice would break in sobs, as though this, 
in his prospect, was dreaded as the greatest trial. But, 
as in most cases it happens, this trial was to him greater 
in the prospect than in the reality. The time which Prov- 
idence allotted to him after he resigned his office in the 
college, was but just enough to complete the preparation 
for the press of the two volumes of his sermons which 
have since been published. 

Respecting the matter of his resignation of the presi- 
dency, we have something from Rev. Mr. Marsh, whose 
aid we have received and availed ourselves of in another 
part of this work. Mr. Marsh says : 

" I think I alluded in my last, to what Dr. Griffin said, 
on the occasion of resigning the presidency. But you 
will allow me here to relate the matter as he uttered it to 
me. As I was walking his hall, I met him as he was re- 
turning from the meeting of the trustees, his daughter, 
Mrs. Smith, having his arm. He stood (and his noble 
form and grave aspect seemed now almost real as they did 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 201 

then) and said — " Well, sir, I hate just been to tender 
my resignation to the Trustees." Mrs. Smith drawing 
her arm from his, was about retiring. " Stop, my dear," 
he said, " hear what I am going to say." " When I 
came here, God made my duty as clear as the noon day, 
and now he has made it just as clearly my duty to resign." 
He then spoke of trials, and said — when my son-in-law 
wrote me, that I had lost three thousand dollars by the 
fire, I never lost a wink of sleep. He proceeded to 
speak of the confiding, peaceful state of his mind, under 
that trial, and added — "But when my son wrote me a few 
days after, that I should have to pay three thousand more, 
on account of the fire, then I did feel tried." But as he 
contemplated all events, as directed by infinite wisdom 
and benevolence, and saw the hand of God in his trials, 
his soul was filled with the peace of God, that passeth 
understanding. With great emphasis he added, " that loss 
was the best thing that ever happened to me. I would 
not have failed of it, for ten thousand worlds." He pro- 
ceeded for a few minutes, in a strain of great and almost 
weeping tenderness, and in a manner peculiarly his own, 
to speak of the goodness of God to him, and of the great 
happiness he felt, in leaving every thing absolutely in his 
hands. 

In a letter of Dr. L. A. Smith, he says respecting Dr. 
Griffin's loss : It occurred in consequence of the great 
fire in New York, which caused so great a loss of proper- 
ty, as to break all the insurance offices in the city. The 
Dr. had about $3,000 in two of them. They were esti- 
mated at from thirty to fifty per Cent above par. This 
13 



202 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



was a dead loss, and it was at one time supposed, that the 
stockholders would be compelled to pay as much more in 
order to meet liabilities of the company. This however, 
did not prove to be the fact, as it was found it could not 
be reached in law. Had this been the case, it would have 
swept away nearly all the balance of the Doctor's means. 
For a time he supposed this might be the case, and this 
was the cause of his mental struggle. While he was in 
the midst of this struggle, he collected into one series all 
the most striking passages of Scripture which inculcate 
and encourage trust in God. These filled many pages ; 
and in view of the whole he said, _ We may break forth 
in the sweet language of the Evangelical prophet .: 1 Thou 
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
thee, because he trusteth in thee.' " While his mind was 
passing through this experience he received a letter from 
his son-in-law, in Xewark, inviting him to spend the re- 
mainder of his days in his family. This deeply affected 
him. It is interesting to mention that in accepting the 
invitation, he stipulated that he should have the privilege 
of continuing his custom of a double religious service at 
table. 

In reference to his removal from Williamstown he 
wrote: "I contemplate the sale of my furniture and 
books, and my removal as a fearful undertaking ; but God 
has remarkably prospered me. Since my removal I have 
longed more than I ever did before to spend my life in 
heavenly devotion. I cannot calculate so much as I have 
done on public usefulness ; but I long and pray for high 
communion with God." When he left Williamstown the 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 203 



people of the place showed him great affection, and the 
students sent a committee from each class, to express 
their respect and attachment. The Faculty invited him 
to a social dinner, at the public house ; and when he left 
the town the whole body of the students came in proces- 
sion to take their leave of him. He made an address to 
them from the carriage ; and there was not a little weeping. 

At Newark he received a cordial welcome from a large 
circle of frie&ds, many of whom were the seals of his min- 
istry. But there was no improvement of his health. He 
had long before prepared, for his own use, a printed set 
of questions to put to himself in self-examination. In 
his diary, he says, " I was led to take up my printed 
form, for self-examination ; and I was delighted and rath- 
er astonished to find that my heart readily responded to 
every question. I see not, therefore, why I may not in- 
dulge the full assurance of hope." Afterwards he wrote 
that he had read the form of self-examination every day 
since April, and could say Yes to almost or quite every 
question ; and that he was determined to read it every day 
for the rest of his life. 

While he was thus in his passage to the grave, his wife, 
after a sickness of twelve days, was removed by death. 
In reference to this event he wrote, " My heart, during 
all the time, had been going out in prayer for her, that 
she might be fully prepared, and die an easy and tri- 
umphant death. The prayer was answered. But this is 
a stroke which I never felt before. I shall soon follow her. 
Her entrance into that blessed world makes heaven appear 
like another apartment of my own house." 



204 RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 



About a week after, he writes " I love to repent. It is 
a luxury to lie low at his feet and mourn for sin. Christ 
is precious to my soul ; the chief among ten thousand, and 
altogether lovely. That God should ever have regener- 
ated me, according to an eternal decree of election, mak- 
ing all the difference in my favor, between an eternal 
heaven and an eternal hell, lays me under boundless ob- 
ligation. 

" Mrs. Griffin's death has been sanctified to me, and 1 
know not but that his present dealings are intended to 
prepare me to follow her soon. I should be glad to live 
to carry my manuscripts through the press, and for a lit- 
tle while longer to promote revivals of religion by preach- 
ing. I have no wish to live for any other reason ; and I 
am willing that God should defeat these purposes if he 
sees fit." 

More then a month later he writes : ' ' My former com- 
plaint has returned upon me, and threatens to carry me 
off. I am willing that God should do as seems good in 
his sight. My disease prevents me from lying all night 
in the bed. The idea of sitting up most of the nigh* was 
dreadful ; but last night it was so delightful to think that 
Infinite Wisdom and Love would order the whole, that I 
had no apprehensions. I had a comfortable night and 
slept well in my chair. I have looked forward to death 
by dropsy in the chest as dreadful ; but it is no longer so. 
A sense that Infinite Wisdom and Love will order every 
thing for me, leaves me no anxiety about any thing. I 
have been deeply affected of late, by these most merciful 
provisions for a poor wretched sinner, so needful for an 



RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. GRIFFIN. 205 



old man, going down into the grave after his beloved wife. 
Not one anxious thought is left me about the event or 
the manner. I am taken up in thanking the blessed God, 
for his wonderful mercy and faithfulness, in thus dealing 
with me. He received every intimation of the rapid pro- 
gress of his disease, with tears of gratitude. He was 
not impatient to be relieved from suffering, for he had a 
filial confidence in him who had carried him so gently 
down, thafe he never spoke of pain, except for a short time 
on the day before his death. At that time he said, "You 
talk of dying agonies. They have come upon me." On 
his last day he was asked if he had any pain. He said, 
" None and then said, ' ' My Heavenly Father ! My 
dear Redeemer ! Wonderful in mercy and in faithfulness ! 
Give him glory forever and ever ! " 

After bathing his feet, he said, ' ' 1 never ©xpect to 
bathe my feet again. My soul I hope to wash in the blood 
of the Lamb." 

At last he fell into a gentle sleep, which continued till 
he ceased to breathe. 



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